Swedish Pedophile Allowed to Adopt Child

By: K. Elsner / guardianlv.com

A convicted pedophile is now allowed to to adopt a child, Swedish newspaper The Local reports. The man was convicted in 2004 for sexually abusing his neighbor’s five-year-old daughter, and he is also suspected of raping a 14-year-old girl. He now has permission to adopt his 10-year-old disabled stepson after the death of his wife.

The man is in his sixties and has been previously found guilty of over 90 crimes, most of them related to fraud. It is reported that he is known to chat with young girls online.

The social affairs committee in the man’s municipality says that his risk of criminal relapse is low. Nine out of the ten members on the committee voted to approve his adoption application. These ten people did not get a chance to read over the details of his alleged crime when they voted, so they were unaware of his full history as a pedophile.

The man was not brought to trial for the suspected rape of the young teenage girl, but since then social services has ordered that he be supervised when he is with his own children. He was later deemed at risk of relapse, and recommended to be treated and given parenting training. His likely victims were underage girls, the report stated.

The man wants to adopt his ten-year-old stepson, who has an unnamed disability. In 2009 he married the boy’s mother, and she has since died from illness but not before giving consent to for her husband to adopt her son. The boy’s biological father consents to the application for adoption as well. The boy has no known relatives in his unnamed country of birth that could take care of him if he were to return there.

Dinah Åbinger, The head of social service in the city of Helsingborg, has filed a formal complaint about the man’s worthiness to adopt. Åbinger explains to TT news agency:

“I should have stopped it. I can only say that it was a weak investigation. There are questions that aren’t described in depth and the investigation should have been resubmitted to family court even before it reached the committee. Because of that I’m reporting us to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate.”

Although the past victims of the man’s alleged crimes were girls, it still may not be appropriate for the man to adopt a boy. The following is an excerpt from Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation by Dr. Gregory M. Herek of UC Davis:

“The distinction between a victim’s gender and a perpetrator’s sexual orientation is important because many child molesters don’t really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes.”

There is no word yet on the status of the complaint as to whether the Swedish pedophile will be allowed to adopt the child.