Swedish man cleared of groping women due to their 'giant breasts'

Police in Sweden have dropped a sexual assault case against a hockey player because the victims had “gigantic breasts”.

The unnamed player from Björklöven hockey club said he did not remember what had happened during the alleged incident on Saturday night at the Marité nightclub in Östersund, central Sweden.

The player was alleged to have put his arms around two women at the nightclub and groped their breasts.

But the investigator in charge of the case, Mikael Lundberg, said there was no proof he had committed the offence because the women had “gigantic breasts” and it was inevitable the hockey player would have accidentally touched them when he put his arms around them.

He said: “With regard to the sexual molestation, they were standing at a bar table and then he comes along drunk and drapes his arms around both of them from behind, and then he happens to touch one of their breasts.

“And it should be noted that they had gigantic breasts. It wasn’t hard to brush up against them.

“If you’re drunk and drape yourself over someone, well, you can understand how it might have happened”.

Former Swedish prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem told The Local he was “amazed” that this justification could still be used in 2016.

He said: “An investigator has to be objective and weigh the plaintiff's’ testimony against the defendant’s; there shouldn’t be any room for speculation. This is absurd and incredibly offensive.”

Mr Alhem said Sweden was getting much better at eradicating sexism from the legal system so attitudes like this were now very rare.

“In the nineties this kind of thing still happened quite a lot, even officially, where for example the shortness of a skirt was taken into account. It was more male-dominated then than it is now”, he said.

He said the women should appeal the decision which he said was "completely illegitimate".

Stephen Jerand, the police chief for the region, criticised Mr Lundberg’s “unfortunate” statement.

He told the Swedish Expressen newspaper: “I hope to God this didn’t affect the decision.

"The decision to drop the case relates to the perpetrator’s subjective intent. Breast size shouldn’t influence a decision regarding intent".

The player has remained suspended from his club. Björklöven’s managing director, Joakim Gustafsson, said being "so drunk that you don't know what you're doing is to go way over the line of what's acceptable".

He said: “If we’re going to be a club for everybody we need to keep working to counteract macho culture and become more welcoming.”