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CRIME

Danish mother convicted of stabbing her nine-year-old daughter to death

A 28-year-old woman was on Thursday sentenced to indefinite detention in a psychiatric institution for killing her nine-year-old daughter.

Published: 10 February 2017 08:45 CET
Danish mother convicted of stabbing her nine-year-old daughter to death
The 28-year-old woman has schizophrenia and said she had been going through a "rough period". Photo: Colourbox
The woman admitted to stabbing her daughter in the throat and said it was a result of her mental illness. 
 
“I’ve killed my daughter. I couldn’t do it to my son. I’m schizophrenic. It’s important that you come right now,” the woman said when she called emergency line 112 according to TV2 Nord’s report. 
 
The woman said she was mentally unstable at the time of the attack and her defence lawyer presented a mental health evaluation to back her claim in court. While standing trial in Herning District Court it was also revealed that she had been institutionalised on several occasions, including in the weekend before the fatal attack on her daughter. 
 
The stabbing took place in the family’s home in Bindslev in northern Jutland while the girl’s father was out walking the dog. 
 
The woman said that she was “in a rough period” because her grandmother and dog had recently died. She stressed in court that her mental issues were “no excuse for what happened”.

CRIME

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

Denmark’s government wants authorities to be able to move children out of families in which parents are gang members and is likely to formalise the measure in parliament.

Published: 9 April 2024 13:38 CEST
Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

The justice spokesperson with senior coalition partner the Social Democrats, Bjørn Brandenborg, told regional media TV2 Fyn that he wants authorities to have the power to remove children from their families in certain circumstances where the parents are gang members.

Brandenborg’s comments came on Monday, after Odense Municipality said it had spent 226 million kroner since 2009 on social services for eight specific families with gang connections.

“There is simply a need for us to give the authorities full backing and power to forcibly remove children early so we break the food chain and the children don’t become part of gang circles,” he said.

The measure will be voted on in parliament “within a few weeks”, he said.

An earlier agreement on anti-gang crime measures, which was announced by the government last November, includes provisions for measures of this nature, Brandenborg later confirmed to newswire Ritzau.

“Information [confirming] that close family members of a child or young person have been convicted for gang crime must be included as a significant and element in the municipality’s assessment” of whether an intervention is justified, the agreement states according to Ritzau.

The relevant part of November’s political agreement is expected to be voted on in parliament this month.

READ ALSO: Denmark cracks down on gang crime with extensive new agreement

Last year, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told political media Altinget that family relations to a gang member could be a parameter used by authorities when assessing whether a child should be forcibly removed from parents.

In the May 2023 interview, Hummelgaard called the measure a “hard and far-reaching measure”.

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