One early morning just before the turn of the year, a policeman is brought in for questioning in the Stockholm area. At the same time, a house search is carried out in the apartment where the man lives.
It is the American organization NCMEC, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, that tipped off the police that a Swedish account has shared material where children are sexually abused. The account is said to have been linked to the policeman.
In the man's phone, quantities of films and images are found that are deemed to be child pornography. The material is not self-produced, but several of the films are considered to have a particularly ruthless content and the policeman has now been charged with serious child pornography offences. According to the lawsuit, he has both possessed and distributed child pornography.
The man is also charged with child rape. The summons alleges that the man has carried out sexual acts with several children under the age of 15.
What makes the charge unusual is that it is based on chat conversations. There are no specified crime victims. The plaintiffs are, as stated in the documents, unknown. The same applies to crime scenes. The crime is said to have taken place between the beginning of 2020 and the spring of 2025.
Furthermore, the policeman is charged with a crime against the Animal Protection Act as he is alleged to have performed sexual acts against animals.
The evidence for both of these charges are statements that the policeman made in various chats with a number of unknown people. The conversations are reproduced verbatim in the preliminary investigation and occupy hundreds of pages. They are characterized by a nonchalant jargon, but what is discussed is hideous. They communicate on a detailed level about very gross and deeply degrading abuse of children. On several occasions, the chat participants exchange files of abuse material with each other.
In one passage, the man who the prosecutor judges to be the policeman writes that he "likes a lot of taboo things" and then says that he has had sex with a dog. The person he is chatting with replies "Hehe". Again, the descriptions are detailed. In another sex chat, the man states to a person that he works as a police officer and explains what his duties are.
But according to the man's defender, Therese Tidesten, the suspicions are not enough to bring charges. In a letter, she emphasizes that the only support available for the criminal suspicions are the chat conversations and that there is a lack of documentation of abuse.
In the letter, the lawyer points out that the man has lent his phone to at least three people and that both his e-mail address and login details have been hacked and leaked online. In light of this, according to the lawyer, it cannot be established that it is the police officer who wrote the messages in question.
With the same reasoning, the accusations of sexual abuse of animals are dismissed. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the chats that form the basis of the criminal suspicions seem to be purely an expression of fantasies.
In questioning, the policeman has consistently denied any crime. The man tells the interrogator that he is shocked and incomprehensible at the criminal suspicions. His explanation is that several of his accounts have been hacked and that several other people have had access to his phone.
The interrogator asks if he thinks his explanations sound reasonable.
- I have no better explanation because it was not me who did it, says the policeman.
In another interrogation, he is asked how the abuse material ended up on his device.
- I don't know that. I am shocked and surprised by this, the man replies.
The interrogator asks if what the man claims is that other people have downloaded thousands of files and hours of rough child pornography onto his phone.
- I don't know, replies the policeman.
The interrogator asks what these people would have to gain from it.
- No idea. Either because they want it themselves or if it's someone who wanted to hurt me, for example.
The man has also been charged with data breach. According to the prosecutor, he has hacked the Police Authority's computer system that was not connected to his work on 27 different occasions. Even regarding that charge, the man denies any crime.
