Djävulen sitter i detaljerna. En undersökning av detaljerade utsagors tillförlitlighet i sexualmål

Sammanfattning: Summary Sexual offence differ from other crimes. The injured party’s evidence in sexual offence tends to consist of solely oral evidence, and partially corroborating evidence. Based on relatively weak evidence, the role of the Swedish Supreme court is to determine whether the defendant’s guilt is beyond reasonable doubt, the legal standard of proof required to validate criminal convictions. A statement made by the injured party that contains many details tends to be given substantial evidential value by the Swedish Supreme Court. A detailed statement is consequently considered reliable. Contrary, statements with few or no details tend to be considered non-reliable. The primary objective is to examine whether the Swedish Supreme Court’s valuation of a detailed statement is compatible with the reliability in accordance with psychological research. This is examined based on psychological research of details in a statement and how the human memory functions. Thus, to answer the research question, this thesis primarily applies an interdisciplinary methodology, while a legal dogmatic methodology also is apparent. This thesis uncovers that many variables determine the reliability of a detailed statement. Subjective factors, such as the injured party’s personality but also objective factors, such as the lightning where the sexual offence took place, affects the possibility to report the incident in a detailed manner. A victim who is intoxicated, drugged, suffers from sleep disorder or from post-traumatic stress disorder, has reduced ability to register details. Research shows that an injured party who has been a victim of a continuing sexual offence tends to more easily forget details, as the sexual offence are perceived as “familiar”. Yet, research also shows that details from traumatic events have a tendency to rarely be forgotten. In conclusion, it is established that the Swedish Supreme Court’s detail criteria are not quality assured against psychological research. Furthermore, the criteria is not as nuanced as psychology research demands to validate the statements’ reliability. In my opinion, it is deemed necessary that the Swedish Supreme Court, to a greater extent, quality assures the evidence validation by using special advisors as psychologists in main hearings to assess the statement of the injured party. Alternatively, it is recommended to use a specific method for evaluation of evidence that is supported by extensive and validated psychology research.