Chat about the Echo examination of the sexsomni in våldtäktsmål – Sveriges Radio

Photo: Emelie Rosén/Sweden’s the Radio.

the Echo reporter Emelie Rosén answer questions about their investigation of how the Swedish courts handle the details of sexsomni in cases of rape. In several trials has the suspect claimed that he raped in his sleep.

The review on sexsomni

the Echo has examined 18 cases of rape between 2010 and 2016 where sexsomni have been raised as possible defense. In ten of the cases freed the man from the våldäkt.

In five of the cases given the benefit of the man on the sole grounds that it is not considered out of the question that the man committed the assault in his sleep, so-called sexsomni.

In all the five judges are reasoning about sexsomni that are irrelevant and sometimes even wrong, according to the leading sexsomniforskaren Carlos H. Schenck of the University of Minnesota.

None of the men in the judges cleared of rape on the sole grounds that they slept in had no sexsomnidiagnos.

In three of the cases there is no support at all, or very little support, that it would move if sexsomni. Among other things, because the men rather acted under intoxication, according to Carlos H. Schenck.

Sources: the Swedish courts; Carlos H. Schenck; Update on Sexsomnia, Sleep Related Sexual Seizures, and Forensic Implications, NeuroQuantology; Sleep, Violence, and Forensic Implications, Sleep Disorders Medicine, Sleep and Sex: What Can Go Wrong?

Graphics: So be freed in the rape in sleep