A man who worked as a mental health nurse in the ward for psychotic patients at Danderyd Hospital is convicted of sexual harassment but acquitted of the charge of rape.
The penalty is 80 daily fines.
It was during 2017 that a female patient was treated in the department for psychosis at Danderyd Hospital. During that time, the mental health worker allegedly approached her and smuggled her out of the ward on several occasions. They allegedly had intercourse in the culverts and in several other places.
The court has had to decide whether the documents should be considered rape. The prosecutor’s side believes that it is rape because the woman was in “a particularly vulnerable situation” The mental health worker has admitted that he had a sexual relationship with the woman, but denies the crime.
The district court considers that the sexual relationship is deemed to have been mutual and the man is therefore acquitted of the rape charges. Nor has the prosecutor proven that “the patient’s right to sexual self-determination has been violated.”
The manager didn’t take it seriously
Staff on the ward had noted that the man behaved in a strange and close-minded manner towards several patients long before the suspected crimes. They alerted a manager to express their concerns, but felt that the manager did not take the situation seriously.
The man was also charged with sexually harassing another female patient. According to the lawsuit, the man must have pushed his sex against the woman who was admitted to the psychiatric ward. The mental health worker denies this and claims that he tried to avoid close contact. The man is now convicted of sexual harassment for this act and according to the verdict, he pressed his erect genital organ against the patient.
The prosecution initially requested that the man be convicted of rape and, secondarily, sexual exploitation of a person in a dependent position.
Among the evidence are scores of testimonies and SMS conversations. Since the majority of the suspected crime was committed before the Consent Act came into force, the case is tried against the previous legislation, which also means that a crime can be counted as rape if the perpetrator has taken advantage of the victim’s particularly vulnerable situation.