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80-year-old convicted for nursing home abuse

An 80-year-old man was on Thursday convicted of rape in connection with the abuse of a woman in her seventies who suffered from dementia at a nursing home in Luleå in northern Sweden.

Published: 14 July 2011 12:49 CEST

The man was convicted by the court on charges of rape and sexual coercion.

He was given a conditional sentence and will avoid having to spend time in prison due to his advanced years. He was ordered to pay 100,000 kronor ($15,500) in damages to the woman.

The case gained additional attention when the court proceedings began in May after revelations that the head of the nursing home declined to inform the police of the sexual abuse, despite repeat reports from employees.

According to a Sveriges Television (SVT) report it took up to five days after the abuse came to light before a report was filed and relatives were told.

After finally having been informed of the abuse, the spouse of the female victim, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, asked that she move accommodation but was told that it was not necessary.

According to SVT, the nursing home had not informed her husband nor her family that the man accused of perpetrating the abuse is still resident in the same department as the woman.

The head of the nursing home explained that it was not possible to divulge any information regarding the case, citing patient confidentiality.

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Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Koin, at the autumn plenary assembly of the German Bishops' Conference in the City Palace. September 2020: Picture alliance / DPA | Arne Dedert

In a rare public rebuke, the diocese council of the western city of Cologne, which groups clergy and laypeople, sharply criticised Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki, saying he had “completely failed as a moral authority”.

“We find ourselves in the biggest crisis that the Church has ever experienced,” Tim Kurzbach, head of the council, said in a statement.

“Those responsible must finally also take responsibility. We need clarity now. Otherwise we have no chance of getting out of this misery.”

Woelki, a conservative who has resisted Church reform efforts, has faced criticism for months for refusing to allow the publication of an independent study on abuse committed by clergy in his diocese, the country's largest, between 1975 and 2018.

Victims have expressed anger and disappointment about his stance.

Woelki has justified his decision by citing a right to privacy of the alleged perpetrators accused in the report, carried out by a Munich law firm, and what he called a lack of independence on the part of some researchers.

In early November, the diocese of the western city of Aachen published its own study prepared by the same law firm.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.

However its authors said the actual number of victims was almost certainly much higher.

The revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a prominent reformer, to apologise on behalf of the German Catholic Church.

The Church currently pays victims an average sum of 5,000 euros ($6,067) “in recognition of their suffering”, as well as covering their therapy fees.

In September 2020, German bishops agreed that victims would be entitled to payouts of up to €50,000 each and an independent committee would be set up to examine complaints and decide on payouts from January 1st, 2021.

READ ALSO: German Catholic Church to pay abuse victims up to €50,000

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