Two women reported a professional ice hockey player to police after he allegedly grabbed their breasts. Photo / Getty Images
Two women reported a professional ice hockey player to police after he allegedly grabbed their breasts. Photo / Getty Images
A Swedish police investigator reportedly dropped a sexual assault charge because the two alleged victims had "gigantic breasts".
Two women reported a professional ice hockey player to police after he allegedly grabbed their breasts at the Marite nightclub in Ostersund, northern Sweden.
But on Tuesday the lead investigator Mikael Lundbergreportedly said there was no proof the player had assaulted the women, or that the man had touched them intentionally.
"It's pertinent in this case that the women had gigantic breasts," he told reporters from Expressen newspaper.
"It wasn't hard to brush up against them. If you're drunk and draping yourself over someone, well, you can see how it might have happened."
Swedish broadcaster SVT also reported that Mr Lundberg had told them that one of the girls had "very large breasts and it was hard not to brush against them."
Sweden's former chief prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem condemned Mr Lundberg for his "totally idiotic" statements.
"It is absolutely disgusting. It is a sensational statement, I would say. Totally indiscriminate and unlawful," he told Expressen. "You do not come up with your own speculations about how easy it might have been to touch someone."
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a Stockholm lawyer and campaigner for rape victims, told the newspaper that breast size should never be a mitigating factor in sexual assault cases.
"A woman should not have to take the blame for a sexual assault simply because she has big breasts," she said.
Stephen Jerand, police chief for the Jamtland region, disowned his investigator's "unfortunate" statement.
"The decision relates to the perpetrator's subjective intent. The fact that he was very drunk and couldn't control his own body; that can happen. But breast size shouldn't influence a decision regarding intent."
Mr Lundberg on Wednesday said he was "extremely sorry for the whole development", telling the Aftonbladet tabloid that he had been "completely misquoted and misunderstood".
"I never said that breast size had any significance," he told Aftonbladet. "Never."
