Nurse sentenced - raped dying patient

"The fact that the district court judges the act to be serious is based, among other things, on the fact that the man has taken advantage of the fact that the woman was in a particularly vulnerable situation as she was cared for at the end of her life and was unconscious at the time," the district court writes in a press release.

The man, who is in his 40s, had worked as a nurse at the hospital for more than ten years. It was late in the evening on August 8 this year that, during his night shift, he walked in on the unconscious woman. He was discovered by a colleague who alerted the police.

However, the man left the hospital before the police could get there. On the way, he crashed at high speed into a concrete foundation on the E4.

The district court sentences him to five years and eight months in prison for aggravated rape and gross negligence in traffic. The court considers that the man has taken advantage of his professional role and exposed a patient "who completely lacked the opportunity to calm down." The man has admitted the crime but believes that the act should be assessed as gross sexual assault, not rape.

The woman died the morning after the rape as a result of her illness. The medical investigation shows that the death cannot be linked to the act.

The man has been discharged from the hospital.