The mother gave the girl medicine and injected bacteria into her, which resulted in life-threatening injuries. Now, the Göta Court of Appeal has increased the sentence from six years' imprisonment to eight.
According to the prosecutor, this is a case of Münchausen by proxy, a rare form of child abuse.
The Court of Appeal also does not believe that the mother can be convicted of attempted murder, but the court intends to treat each instance of the girl being injected with insulin or bacteria as a separate offence, and has therefore imposed a higher sentence on the mother, including for aggravated assault.
The court describes it in the verdict as "repeated and very serious criminality committed against a small child who lacked the ability to defend itself".
The girl, who is of preschool age, was in and out of hospital in 2023 with symptoms that could not be explained.
Several reports of concern were filed, and when doctors discovered that she had multiple different gut bacteria in her blood, social services were alerted. The suspicion was that someone in the girl's vicinity was deliberately making her ill, which was reported to the police by the social services committee in August.
The damages awarded to the girl of 430,000 kronor remain in place. The mother denies the crime.
