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CRIME

Man found dead in cell was accused of attempted sexual assault on 14-year-old: report

A man suspected of assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Denmark has been found dead in his prison cell, a local media has reported.

Published: 12 January 2018 16:01 CET
Man found dead in cell was accused of attempted sexual assault on 14-year-old: report
File photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix Denmark

The man was found dead at a custodial facility in the southern town of Kolding on Friday morning.

Michael Weiss, Chief Superintendent with South East Jutland Police, confirmed the death to newspaper Randers Amtsavis.

According to the newspaper, the man in question is 37 years old and was remanded in custody on Thursday on suspicion of repeated attempted sexual assaults and other offences of a sexual nature relating to a girl under the legal age of consent.

Police did not however confirm that information.

“I will not comment on who the person in question is or what happened specifically. But we are investigating the case,” Weiss told Randers Amtsavis.

The 37-year-old was charged during preliminary hearings on Thursday with several cases of attempted rape of the girl, according to the newspaper.

He denied the charges and his preliminary detention was extended by four weeks. That detention was appealed to a higher court, according to the report.

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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