"A person who commits criminal acts as defined in Chapters 3, 4 or 6 against another person having, or have had, a close relationship to the perpetrator shall, if the acts form a part of an element in a repeated violation of that person's integrity and suited to severely damage that person's self-confidence, be sentenced for gross violation of integrity (…)." Chapter 4, Section 4 a, paragraph 2 of the Swedish Penal Code. The Supreme Court ruled that even though several assaults separately do not qualify as criminal acts as defined in Chapter 3, 4, or 6 of the Swedish Penal Code they may, if assessed together, be seen as seriously damaging to a person's self-confidence and the perpetrator may be sentenced for gross violation of a woman's integrity. In this case, a man had thrown a glass of juice in the face of the woman he lived with while she held their youngest child in her lap. He also had assaulted her several times by, inter alia, kicking her legs and buttocks, taking firm grips of her neck, punching her neck and shoulder, stepping on her feet, knocking her over on the floor, taking her in a stranglehold, and threatening to kill her. Although only one of the assaults could be defined as a criminal act in accordance with Chapters 3, 4 or 6 of the Swedish Penal Code, the Supreme Court stated that it is necessary to take into account a person's entire situation when assessing gross violation of a woman's integrity. The Supreme Court further ruled that it is not necessary to establish that a person's self-confidence is actually injured but only that the acts are such as would typically lead to serious injury to a person's self-confidence.
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