The Supreme Court takes up the case

Jeanette, 61, was so devastated that the undertaker advised her children not to look at her as she lay in the coffin.

Her partner was sentenced to life in prison for murder. But the Court of Appeal overturned the sentence and reduced the sentence to seven years in prison.

Now the Supreme Court takes up the case.

– The law must be changed. Women’s lives must be valued more highly, says Jeanette’s daughter Nathalie, 36, to the podcast Aftonbladet Krim.

Nathalie received the terrible news one July morning last year. Her beloved mother was dead.

– I was going to have breakfast when my brother called. I fell out into the yard and screamed. I screamed so loud that my husband heard it even though he was standing by the chop saw. Then I collapsed, then everything is just a blur.

Jeanette was a charismatic woman, one who lit up the room and could make anyone laugh.

– That’s what I remember most about mother, all the laughter and her wonderful sense of humor. She was very loving, she loved animals, she loved people and she loved being there for others. She was very popular. She was a genuinely nice person, says Nathalie.

Something was wrong

But the last few years changed something. Nathalie and her four siblings suspected that everything was not right in their mother’s life.

But how bad it had been, they only understood afterwards.

When Jeanette met the man who became her partner, Nathalie experienced that the mother she knew began to disappear.

– I never got to talk to mother myself at the end, because it was always someone else who was in the background and supervising. I was never allowed to have one-on-one conversations with my own mother.

In front of the children, Jeanette kept up the facade. She said everything was fine. That the big bruises around the eyes came from a bicycle accident. That her arm broke off when she fell down the stairs. That the bruises came from her accidentally squeezing herself in the car door.

– You’ve been told that you shouldn’t blame yourself, but it happens anyway. You think if only you had understood, if you hadn’t been so naive… But mother could be very convincing in her explanations, if there was something she didn’t want to tell, she didn’t tell. Afterwards, I understood that she wants to protect us, says Nathalie.

“She was crushed”

On the morning of Saturday 9 July, Jeanette’s 52-year-old partner called his mother. He told the mother that he had woken up to find Jeanette dead in bed.

Jeanette was completely devastated. The partner claims that he does not remember what happened.

– Mother had fractures all over her body. They were not a part that he had left. He had kicked, stomped, hit. So, she was crushed, says Nathalie.

In the district court, the 52-year-old was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

– Every now and then it was a relief. It was a terrible relief. And a sense of vindication for mom.

But the Court of Appeal overturned the sentence and instead sentenced the man to seven years in prison for extremely serious assault.

The Court of Appeal considers that it is beyond reasonable doubt that the partner abused Jeanette the night she died, but that it cannot be established that she died from the violence. According to the Court of Appeal, she may have died of drug poisoning.

– The Court of Appeal verdict was such a betrayal. They didn’t think it was true. It’s like a parody, says Nathalie.

– My mother, she’s not even alive. How can she be extremely badly abused? She is not alive, as a result of his violence. Not as a result of her taking anti-depressants.

Hope for justice

Now the Supreme Court will decide what the 52-year-old man will be sentenced for. They are expected to try the case in mid-November.

– It feels great that they bring it up. I don’t really dare to hope, but somewhere you still want to believe that there is justice. That you actually protect women and their legal certainty and security.

– In some way, it feels like it might end up in the right hands now. And perhaps somewhere they have understood the seriousness and understood what message it conveys when you choose to lower the sentence to seven years. He’s after three.

Nathalie hopes that the HD verdict will lead to change.

– I don’t want mother’s life to be completely in vain. I want the law to be changed. That it should not be possible to interpret this in favor of the perpetrator.

– If you have used that kind of violence, intentionally used violence that has actually led to someone else’s death, then you cannot take responsibility away from someone just because other factors can weigh in. It shouldn’t be like that, says Nathalie.

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