3 SWEDISH CASES (in detail)

Teacher case - (B 2637/92 Gothenburg District Court)

In September 1992 a teacher was convicted and fined for having maltreated his 12 year-old son. The parents - both intellectuals - had made certain rules as regards the tidying of the children's rooms and watching the TV. The children were not allowed to watch TV all evening, and their TV-time was restricted to 2 hours per evening including playing computer games.

On April 9, the father told his son to turn off the tv and empty the garbage. The boy refused to comply, so his father turned off the tv, removed the boy bodily from the sofa, put the garbage bag in his hand and shoved him towards the door. The boy cried and the following day he went to the police and reported being beaten and kicked - that he had been maltreated by his father.

The boy informed his father that he had reported him to the police, and the father explained what the consequences could be. The boy rushed off to the police station to withdraw his statement but instead, that resulted in the father also being charged for "interfering in due process".

The Pre-school teacher case - (B 5050/92 Gothenburg District Court)

A young Finnish pre-school teacher was accused of maltreating her 12 year old daughter who always kept on stealing and running away from home. The mother and daughter have been living in Sweden for 6 years and the child was emotionally disturbed because of alleged sexual abuse from her father (the parents divorced before mother and daughter moved to Sweden).

Once when the girl had run away from home she was taken care of by the police and the social authorities in Falk?ping. The girl then said that she was afraid to return home because her mother would be angry with her for having run off once again, that her mother would perhaps smack her.

The policeman then advised the girl of her rights according to the law, and that her mother was not allowed to even lay a finger on her - only talk to her. She was also encouraged to go to the police and report her mother if ever she should lay hands on her.

A few weeks later, the girl ran off once again and when she finally returned home late that night she was very provocative. Her mother became angry and physically punished her. The girl went to the police the next morning and filed charges against her mother.

The mother was found guilty of maltreatment.

The H?lsingborg Case - (Order of summary punishment (Straff?rel?ggande) 1252-882-84)

H?lsingborgs District Attorney issued an order of summary punishment on May 23, 1984 against a Swedish father for physically punishing his 12 year old.

The boy's friends used to call the family's telephone so often that the parents decided to get a secret number. The boy was told not to give the number to his friends. On April 27, 1984, when a call came for the boy, his father accused him of having given the new telephone number to his friends.

When the boy denied doing this, his father accused him of lying and physically punished him. His mother saw what had happened and instructed the boy to report his father to the police. The family then sat down to dinner and an hour later the boy went to the police and reported his father.

The mother was interrogated by the police on May 14, 1984. The police asked her if she had been aware of the consequences of a report to the police. She replied: "I wasn't, but I thought that the police would talk to Dad, and give him a warning so that he wouldn't do it again. If we had known that it would go as far as this, we would never have reported the incident. It would have remained within the family."

the ?'s are due to the translation of Swedish into English.