Swede found guilty of rape based on online interactions has convictions upgraded
Swedish courts that found a man guilty of sex crimes against young girls in Canada and around the world based solely on the nature of his online interactions with them have set a bold new precedent by upgrading more than a dozen of his convictions to rape, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Annika Wennerstrom said Bjorn Samstrom had previously been convicted of 59 sex charges for offences committed against children in three countries, including a teen Ontario and one in Alberta.
Those verdicts included five convictions of aggravated rape of a child or rape, marking one of the first known times someone had been found guilty of the offence without being physically in the room with the victim.
After appeals from both the defence and prosecution, however, Wennerstrom said the courts not only upheld Samstrom’s original rape convictions but added several new ones by upgrading previous charges