In April 2024, three children escaped from an isolated house in Mellerud in Dalsland. They knocked on a house and asked the person who opened the door to call the police. It was the start of a criminal investigation with few parallels.
For several years, a parent couple and another mother who joined the family have kept their total of 11 children hidden from school, care and decisions about custody according to the LVU. According to the prosecutor, the children must have lived in what he calls a Roma context of honor and had searchable so-called airtags sewn into their clothes. They have also been forced to move between different municipalities.
– It is serious that you can do it this way, I think. The period that I have prosecuted is the last year and during that time they have lived at several different addresses and I can see no other purpose than that it is to escape society, says prosecutor Oscar Johansson.
Witnessing domestic violence
The children and their representatives follow the negotiations, which were held in the Gothenburg district court on Wednesday, from secret locations. On Wednesday, one of the girls, a 14-year-old, testified about the abuse she allegedly suffered from her father.
– He pulled my hair, he kicked me, he pushed me, he hit me in the back, he gave me washcloths. I was pulled by the hair, ear-filed, pushed, thrown against the wall, says the girl in the interrogation.
She also testifies that she and another of the girls were threatened with having their hair cut off, which she believes is a punishment within the culture of honor. To show that one has done wrong and “is a whore”.
The accused father continues to deny the crimes he is accused of.
– It is, of course, an upsetting and terrible situation for him and the family. They do not feel at all that it is at the level that the prosecutor presents, says Lennart Lefverström, the father’s defense lawyer.
The trial continues in the Gothenburg district court on Thursday.