Updated 10.53 | Published 10.34
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The vinegar was on the family dryer to get rid of the bad smell and in the middle of the night the six-year-old got up and drank it.
It was an accident, emphasizes defense attorney Ebba Gerleman, who today gives the mother’s picture of what led to the girl’s life-threatening condition.
The parents are charged with extremely serious abuse of the girl, partly because she was dangerously cold when she arrived at the children’s intensive care unit in Lund on Christmas Eve last year and partly because she ingested so much vinegar that her stomach was destroyed.
The parents had “made sure” that the girl ingested the vinegar, claims the prosecutor, who, however, was clear that the police and prosecutors could not say how this happened.
Ebba Gerleman gives a completely different picture: The girl woke her mother in the middle of the night and had a stomach ache. The father then went into the laundry room and checked the glass that had vinegar in it. It was empty.
In the family, vinegar was used for many things, according to the lawyer: In the laundry, for cleaning and to get rid of banana flies.
– This particular glass of vinegar in the laundry room has been on the dryer to neutralize the smell of smoke that enters the laundry room when the neighbors have a fire.
The defense attorney reads out all the text messages the mother wrote to the father after he went to the hospital with the six-year-old to show her great concern for the girl who ingested vinegar. “How is she, is she scared?” writes the mother.
Worried and unhappy
Prosecutors argue that the text messages show the parents have tried to agree on a joint description of what happened – the lawyer instead believes they show a worried and unhappy mother after an accident at home.
She emphasizes that the girl had been sick for some time before the vinegar intake and says that the expert hired by the defense will show that the girl’s low body temperature was a result of several interacting factors: the girl’s medical condition that night, clothing, ambient temperature and nutritional status.
Prosecutor Ingegerd Jigin has been clear that she believes the parents are lying about what happened and that they are not telling the truth in “some respect”.
She has described the family as relatively isolated, said that the home was their world and underlined that they lived in such a way that the parents must have known what happened in the home.
— It is the work of the parents. Anyone who hasn’t done it has known about it, said Ingegerd Jigin when the trial began on Monday.
Points to self-injurious behavior
The mother’s defense attorney describes that the parents perceived the daughter as immature for her age, that she often withdrew and was sometimes difficult to get in touch with. Their opinion was that she had suffered a brain injury in connection with the birth, which she had not been diagnosed with, but which the parents wanted investigated.
According to the parents, she was also “boundless” and had self-harming behaviour. It has varied, but increased when more difficult events occurred in the family, for example when the grandmother passed away and when the mother had an accident.
The prosecutor, for his part, has emphasized that since she began to recover in the hospital, the girl has not shown any signs of suffering from self-harming behavior, or of being late in her intellectual development.
“Influenced by what they read”
The defense lawyer also points out that the police investigation may have been affected by the extensive media coverage and writings on the internet, where the parents were described in very negative terms.
– It cannot be ignored that there are people who are influenced by what they read in the media, says Ebba Gerleman.
The lawyer ends by showing photos of the girl in various situations, such as when she is swimming in a children’s pool and when she is playing with her siblings. With this, she wants to show that the girl was in no way kept out.
– She takes pictures of her child. She loves her daughter and wants photos of her.
FACTUAL accusation against the parents
The parents of a now seven-year-old girl have been charged on seven counts.
Extremely severe abuse: The parents are held responsible because the girl has ingested such a quantity of vinegar that she has suffered caustic damage to her esophagus and stomach and thus put her life in danger. They also allegedly exposed her to prolonged and severe cooling and thus put her in a life-threatening condition.
Two counts of wrongful deprivation of liberty: The girl was allegedly kept strapped into a car seat, locked in a laundry room where the handle on the inside was removed, for several weeks in December 2022. The girl was also allegedly kept locked in much earlier. It must have happened periodically, between April 2020 and June 2022, in a room with pre-nailed windows and a gate for the door.
The parents are also charged with three different crimes of gross abuse against the girl, which include that she was subjected to starvation or at least severe malnutrition. The parents are also charged with gross breach of the peace.
The parents deny any wrongdoing.
The trial in Lund District Court continues until January 23.
Source: Prosecutor’s subpoena
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