A young woman was at her father’s home in her 40s in a town in Dalsland in the summer of 2022.
They fell asleep in the evening in the same double bed. In the middle of the night, she woke up to her father putting his arms around her. He then allegedly touched her sex and breasts, inside the underwear.
The woman says that she jumped out towards the edge of the bed in an attempt to move. Immediately after, the father got up from the bed to go to the toilet. When he came back he again placed himself close behind her with his arms around her.
She then tried to move “as far out towards the edge of the bed as possible” before she then left the bed, she has said.
The district court rules: A sexual assault
The incident was reported to the police and earlier this week the verdict in the case came. The Vänersborg district court judged the young woman to be credible and considered, through supporting evidence, that the prosecution was substantiated and that she was the victim of the act.
“In summary, the district court considers that through the plaintiff’s story and other supporting evidence, it has been established that (the father) at the time and place alleged carried out the sexual acts stated in the description of the act. It has also been investigated that (the daughter) did not participate voluntarily. The act is objectively to be assessed as a sexual assault,” writes the district court in its judgment.
The man himself states that he does not remember anything from the night or that he assaulted the daughter, but that he does not question her either. He tells in questioning that he “touched” his current and former partner in his sleep, and his only explanation is that he may have been asleep when he touched the daughter. He used to take sleeping pills during the period but does not remember if he did so on the night in question, according to the court hearing.
Blames the sleep explanation – acquitted
The woman has said she was sure the man was awake, especially after he went to the bathroom.
But the district court does not consider it proven whether he was awake. They also consider that a person close to the father testified that he reacted with shock when he learned that he has been reported to the police, and that this indicates that he had no intention of committing the crime.
The district court believes that it is therefore not unreasonable that the man was asleep when he assaulted the young woman. He is therefore fully acquitted of the charges.
The legal judge in the case, a chief councillor, disagreed and wanted to convict the father. This when the judge considered that the man was awake. Among other things, based on how the woman felt the father’s movements in bed that he was not sleeping.
“The very circumstances that (the man) went to the toilet after the plaintiff moved away from him in bed, and that he then lay down close to her again when he came back from the toilet, are circumstances that I believe strongly suggest that he was awake at the deed”, writes the legal judge in a different sentence and states that there is also no support for the accused having a sleep disorder.
But the jurors had a unanimous majority and therefore acquitted the father in a so-called jury verdict.
TV4 Nyheterna has tried to get in touch with the prosecutor in the case and also the woman’s plaintiff’s counsel.