Police in Skåne came under fire early this year when it emerged that Malmö police officers had used the fictional names “Neger Niggersson” and “Oskar Neger” (Negro) for internal training purposes.

“The investigation is over. It’s not possible to proceed with it,” chief prosecutor Jörgen Lindberg from the National Police-related Crimes Unit told news agency TT.

It also proved impossible to classify the crime as racial agitation as the prosecutor was not able to prove that there was any malicious intent to distribute the racist names.

A police instructor first displayed the fictitious names on a screen during a course held for around fifty staff at the county police department in Malmö in the spring of 2008. Several officers reacted with shock to the sample names and the incident was reported to senior officers.

The course instructor responded to the criticism by erasing the names from the police’s internal computer system. According to the prosecutor, no log-in details remain to isolate the involvement of a particular individual.

“The system is full of made-up names like Maja Hallon [Raspberry] and Lasse Svensk [Swede]. There’s a lot of creativity when it comes to this sort of thing,” said Lindberg.