The female correctional officer began a relationship with a convicted rapist – who was under the supervision of the Correctional Service.
She later gave birth to the couple’s joint child.
But when the Probation Service confronted the woman, she denied the information and gave another name for the child’s father, reports Today’s Law.
The tip came to the Correctional Service last spring, and was about a correctional officer having a relationship with a previously incarcerated man. The relationship would have started in an institution in Central Sweden and resulted in the correctional officer now expecting the man’s child.
When the woman was questioned about the information, she denied it. Instead, she stated that another man was the child’s father.
However, a check against the civil registry a few months later showed that it was the former inmate who was the registered father of the child.
Convicted of seven rapes and assault
The man who was the de facto father of the child has a long string of convictions against him, and has served four years in prison for, among other things, seven rapes, assault and serious breach of peace. During one of the rapes, he allegedly tied his victim to the bed with elastic bands.
The female correctional officer has subsequently stated that, when she was confronted with the information, she did not know that the former inmate was the father of the child, and has claimed that the relationship began after the man’s time in the institution.
Charged – and punished
A disciplinary case was initiated against the woman, which has now resulted in a ruling from the Prison Service’s personnel responsibility board, which has stated that the woman “had a relationship that was not connected to her employment in the authority, which means that the relationship has been improper.”
It has not been possible to establish that the woman lied when she claimed in the spring that she did not know who the child’s father was, but she should have then informed the Correctional Service that she had started a relationship with the man. In addition, the woman should have informed the authority that the former inmate was the father of the child when paternity was established in the population register.
The female correctional officer has now been punished with a 30-day salary deduction, the maximum possible, for neglecting two of her employment obligations.