Appeals court clears man of rape charges, convicts him of abuse

A man in his seventies has been acquitted of raping his former wife more than 1,000 times but convicted of repeated domestic abuse and breaching a restraining order, Dagbladet reports.

Vestoppland and Valdres District Court had sentenced the man to eight years and six months in prison, finding that he had raped his former wife more than 1,000 times. He appealed the verdict.

At the Eidsivating Court of Appeal in Gjøvik in late June, he faced charges of raping his former wife from 1983 until December 2015, abusing her in a close relationship and breaching a restraining order.

“It is completely unreal to me that charges have been brought against me based on circumstantial evidence and lies, to put it strongly,” the man told the court.

Prosecutor Trine Erdal had sought a nine-year prison sentence. The appeals court instead acquitted the man of rape and sentenced him to one year and four months in prison for domestic abuse and breaching the restraining order.

He must also pay the woman 120,000 kroner in compensation. The district court had set the amount at 550,000 kroner.

His defence lawyer, Hanne Pentzen of Elden Law Firm, said her client was pleased to have been acquitted of the rape charges, but maintained that he should not have been convicted of any offence.

“The two judgments in this case show how easily the threshold for conviction can be missed in sexual offence cases,” Pentzen told Dagbladet. She said the man had been sentenced by the district court to more than eight years in prison for conduct the appeals court found had never been proven.

The woman told the court that the man held her arms while having sexual intercourse with her despite her saying no and resisting. “It was not me who decided over my own body. He was the one who did that,” she said through tears.

Her legal aid lawyer, Eivor Øen, did not wish to comment. Dagbladet was unable to obtain a comment from prosecutor Trine Erdal.

The woman’s diary from 2012 to 2015 was presented as evidence during the trial. She used the codes “N: – +” to describe how the night had gone. She explained that a minus sign meant that intercourse had been attempted or carried out, while a plus sign meant that it was over and she could sleep.

“The diary cannot support the claim that the defendant regularly raped the victim,” the appeals court wrote in its judgment. The court noted that the woman had explained that the minus signs could have different meanings.

She used the word rape for the first time in the diary in 2015. On May 15 that year, she wrote: “Dreaded it, and rightly so. Raped!!!” The appeals court noted that this was near the end of the period covered by the charges and said it could be questioned whether the entry described more isolated incidents.

The court found that the diary did support the charge of domestic abuse. It also noted that there was no technical evidence of rape and that, given the number of alleged rapes, other evidence made close to the time of the incidents would normally be expected.

Two of the couple’s children testified that they had witnessed sexual assaults when they were children and slept in their parents’ bedroom. Their daughter said she had heard her mother say “no, stop” and “leave me alone”, and that it happened several times a week. She also said she saw her father holding her mother’s hands during intercourse.

“Such behaviour does not necessarily indicate that a rape has taken place,” the appeals court wrote.

The court nevertheless found it proven that the man had subjected the woman to repeated psychological and physical abuse from 2006 to 2015. The abuse included persistent attempts to obtain frequent sex, including repeatedly asking for intercourse during the night for several hours despite her saying that she wanted to sleep and did not want sex. The court also found that he had on several occasions kicked her out of bed when she refused intercourse.

When the woman moved into a separate bedroom in their shared home in 2014, she said he broke in with a screwdriver and forced her to have intercourse.