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One night in late February 2018, Elina Bäckström, now 21, was heading home after attending a small house party.
At Citygrillen in Karlstad, she exchanged a few words with an unknown man, a man who later followed her and raped her.
Two and a half years after the incident, the Supreme Court recently decided not to grant authorization to appeal in the case, so now the judgment of the Court of Appeal has been confirmed:
A 23-year-old man is sentenced to two years in prison and ten years of deportation for rape.
– Now the legal process is really over. Now it can’t happen anymore. Of course, it is very nice, says Elina Bäckström.
The district court gave an acquittal
But the road to the Supreme Court decision has been long.
Elina, along with her parents, had to take the case on her own to the Court of Appeal, after the district court acquitted the assailant.
They said, among other things, that Elina had been too drunk for her story to be completely reliable.
“As mentioned above, the plaintiff was heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time and her information should be evaluated with caution. In the judgment of the district court, in this context it cannot be ruled out that he made a mistake in the matter “the district court wrote, among other things.
When GT spoke to Elina this spring regarding the Appeals Court ruling, she said the days of the district court trial were the worst of her life.
– I have never been questioned so much and I have felt so humiliated. After waiting two weeks, I received a call regarding the verdict and that he was acquitted. I just broke down, I hardly knew how to get on with life, he said.
Elina: The body surrendered
She also told how, after the abuse, she lost everything that had characterized her before and that she found no other way than to drop out of almost all high school courses.
She described it as the body “mentally almost gave up”.
– I went from the girl who had many friends, high grades, who trained and who often went out to lose weight, lose friends, lose grades, school and my high school diploma, she said then and continued:
– I can no longer go out, but I panic and anxiety. I can’t sit on a bus, I can’t do much. It has been hell.
HD message: No test permission
The Supreme Court has now upheld the Court of Appeal ruling by failing to grant the perpetrator permission to appeal, something NWT has previously written about.
– To be honest, it feels quite unreal, says Elina Bäckström.
– I’ve been waiting since last spring, seven months. For the past five weeks I have been on sick leave, I waited all summer for HD’s decision and in the end I couldn’t take it anymore. But right now, today, it feels pretty good. In the midst of all this, life has moved on.
Now look ahead. The plan is for him to study 100 percent in municipal adult education.
– I don’t know if I’ll be strong. At the same time, people say that they will not judge me if I do not have the strength, and that I must also say to myself. But I have my goals and I want things, I feel like this has taken my life quite a bit, says Elina Bäckström.
This is the rape law in Sweden: you can give up to 10 years in prison.
Related:
Armed with a knife and masked with a white hood, he assaulted and raped several women in the Stockholm suburbs 30 years ago. Now serial rapist Jordanis Kouroutsidis is once again charged.
