The baby was seriously injured - yet the father and mother are acquitted of the violence

Chamber prosecutor Mia Djerf had prosecuted the father and mother, both in their 30s, for suspicions of particularly severe abuse of their common son.

The parents were arrested at the hospital in Skövde in April this year when they came in with the boy, who was in a lot of pain and had a limply hanging arm.

In DN's review earlier this week, it emerged that the same father had a boy with another mother five years ago and that that boy, when he was three months old, was also discovered to have serious and similar head injuries and a series of broken bones.

But that police investigation was dropped. The prosecutor considered that it was not possible to prove an intent to harm.

The father's lawyer, Christin Hofbauer, argued in both cases that the suspicions were based on an incorrect assessment by the health care and forensic doctors about how to interpret so-called shaking violence.

The district court rejects the reasoning. Both are convicted, but "only" for aggravated assault. The fact that the father still gets nine years in prison while the mother gets two years is due to the fact that he is also convicted of twenty rapes of a woman he previously had a relationship with.

Skaraborg district court thus agrees with the prosecutor that the little boy was subjected to what is called blunt force or shaking force. But by whom?

"The district court is therefore forced to state that it must be either the mother or the father or both of them together who injured the son, but that it has not been proven which of them it is and that the other may be innocent," writes the district court.

It is also not possible to prove that the mother and father "knew that the boy was subjected to violence but failed to intervene", they write.

The court takes up that the father was suspected of serious abuse against his older son. "The similarities between the cases cannot be ignored", they write, and consider that "it is remarkable" that the father, against that background, "was not more careful" with his second child.

Now both are sentenced because they should have gone to the hospital a few days earlier because of the pain from broken ribs. The Parental Code gives them a so-called guarantor responsibility.

The justification reads:

"As their omission must have caused the boy severe pain unnecessarily for several days, the district court judges that the act should be classified as aggravated assault".

But the chairman of the case and head of the Skaraborg district court, lawyer Peter Stafverfeldt, disagreed and wanted to acquit them of this as well.

- The coroner says that most of the injuries occurred the same day that they actually took him to treatment. The older injuries to the ribs, I feel more doubtful that one should understandably required care. It could have been perceived as mainly stomach cramps, for example, says Stafverfeldt to DN.

He also points out that they were new parents and not very experienced.

The verdict lists nine troubling points that would suggest that the father committed the violence.

- Yes, there are troublesome points regarding the father. But it is still a bit speculative, no one has seen the other use violence and the standard of proof is high. Yes, it could be the mother, even if the investigation mostly points to the father, says lawyer Peter Stafverfeldt.

He says he "sees similarities" with the well-known Lindome murder.

36 years ago, an 89-year-old man was murdered in Lindome, south of Gothenburg. Two were arrested and they blamed each other. Both were acquitted because the Court of Appeal could not decide who was telling the truth and one of them could be innocent.

- It can be difficult for the public to accept that they know it is one of them but both are acquitted, says Peter Stafverfeldt.

- But that's where we end up precisely because one can be innocent. There is no cover because they acted jointly and in agreement, and that is not how the indictment is written either.