A 61-year-old had his spouse monitored, abused her, according to the court, and offered her to 120 customers, sometimes several times. The punishment falls short of what the public prosecutor demanded.
June 18, 2026, 04:37June 18, 2026, 05:05
Niels Anner, Copenhagen / ch media
The courthouse in Härnösand, Sweden.Image: Mats Andersson/Iago
The last sex client had just left when the Swede managed to escape one night last October. She had figured out where the blind spots of the cameras installed throughout the house were; Cameras that her husband had used to monitor her for years and film her having sex with other men.
Now she ran away naked from the remote farm outside the small town of Kramfors in central Sweden and called the police. “I was trapped in my own house,” she reported; you could hear her fear. After three years she reached safety.
According to the indictment, her 61-year-old husband had repeatedly threatened her with violence since 2022 if she left him. He is said to have broken her ribs, given her drugs and threatened to set her on fire. At the same time, the man, who was formerly a member of the rocker group Hells Angels and described himself as a “monster,” offered his wife to 120 johns for sex – according to the public prosecutor, sexual acts occurred at least 300 times online and physically, in his own camper or in other places such as hotels.
The case shocked and attracted a lot of attention in Sweden, not least because it is reminiscent of the mistreatment of Frenchman Dominique Pelicot. He had drugged his wife Gisèle for years and let dozens of men rape her.
Four and a half years in prison and compensation
On Tuesday, the 61-year-old Swede Thomas R. was sentenced to four years and five months in prison for serious pimping, attempted rape and other offenses. He also has to pay the equivalent of 17,000 francs in compensation. The court explained that R. threatened, insulted and humiliated his wife and ruthlessly exploited her. And he looked for the customers and collected the income from the sex business, which was planned down to the last detail.
However, the defendant was not convicted of multiple rapes, as the public prosecutor had requested. The court said it did not consider all of the prosecution’s allegations to be proven. The evidence, which, in addition to the couple’s statements, consisted of a large amount of video recordings, chats and other cell phone data, did not clearly show that the woman was involved in the sexual acts against her will. According to the court, what made matters worse was that the victim could no longer remember many situations.
In his defense, the defendant said he never forced his wife, but simply helped her realize her dream of working as a “luxury prostitute”. His wife, on the other hand, said that she fled when she finally had proof of her being forced into prostitution: a text message in which R. wrote that she should “just have sex and obey.” The public prosecutor’s office was of the opinion that the victim was completely controlled and in fact could not say no to selling sex.
Because the court did not consider the rape allegations to be proven, the sentence was significantly lower than for Pelicot, who received 20 years in prison. “Unfortunately,” said the Swede’s defense attorney, Silvia Ingolfsdottir, this verdict shows that there is still a long way to go to protect women from such exploitation. She assumes that her client wants to appeal.
In addition to R., 28 other men were convicted – for buying sex. These are illegal in Sweden, but only johns are punished, not prostitutes. The court found 56 sex purchases to be proven; in many cases there was no evidence or it was time-barred. Two men received prison sentences, the rest were sentenced to fines or community service. (schweiztoday.ch)