The Virus Case

Linda and Edith (b. 1986 and 1987, biological daughters)

The prosecutor decided three times not to try the father. But a number of judgements were passed by the district and the court of appeal between 1991 and 1995, regarding whether the father should be permitted to meet his children without supervision.

When the parents divorced, their two daughters were 3 and 1 years old. One afternoon a few weeks later (1989-11-22) the father was babysitting in the mother's apartment. When the mother came home she observed a virus infection in Linda's breast. The diameter was 2 cm. The mother thought that the father had tortured Linda with a cigarette lighter. The idea did not occur to her that if this was true, the mark would have been sore and painful, and the child would have been scared of her father. But none of these circumstances were present.

The mark on Edith's breast is illustrated in Figure 1. I am not a medical expert on burns. However, this mark does not resemble any of the colour pictures in J. A. Clarke (1992): A Colour Atlas of Burn Injuries.


Figure 1. This photo of Edith's breast was taken 1989-11-25 (three days after the mark was noticed for the first time).

The maternal grandmother and the maternal uncle work at an adult psychiatric emergency unit. They convinced one doctor that Linda had been tortured, so the child was brought to him on 1989-11-25. Two other doctors who were not psychiatrists examined the mark a few days later. Neither observed any pain or soreness. But on 1989-11-28 one doctor reported the father to the social services, and on 1989-11-30 the social services reported the father to the police. 1989-12-01 was the date of the first police interrogation of the mother. On 1989-12-07 the two non-psychiatric doctors produced a joint affidavit for the district court.

1989-12-13 was the date of the first meeting of the secret sex abuse group. Two days later the prosecutor decided not to charge the father. He gave a strong and unusual justification for his decision: "There is no reason to assume that any crime has been committed".

Around the end of 1990/the beginning of 1991 the head of the day nursery stated that the psychic condition of both girls had deteriorated markedly during the spring and autumn of 1990.

This is an excellent example of a pattern which judges have observed in numerous cases: the health of a child is excellent as long as sexual abuse [allegedly] takes place, while the health of the child deteriorates when the alleged abuse stops. A more likely explanation is that the deterioration was caused by the mother's intrigues.

On 1990-02-15 the mother took both her daughters to the child psychiatric clinic. This was almost three months after she started her attempts to send her former husband to prison.

Nevertheless, three clinicians would later write a mendacious affidavit to the court, in which they claimed that the mother was not in the least prone to accuse the father. On the contrary, still when the mother visited the child psychiatric clinic for the first time, she had been blind to all the clear signs of sexual abuse. The clinicians wisely abstained from stating what these clear signs were. But they did state that it was the clinic that had opened the mother's eyes.

It goes without saying that the aim of this lie was to facilitate a legal conviction, or another erroneous judgement. The father was never tried despite the mother's repeated police reports. But for five years he was not permitted to meet his children without supervision.

Chapter 87-94 in Scharnberg (1996, vol. II) are devoted to an analysis of this case.





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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

Yakida