Norway outlaws sex without consent as Europe strengthens rape laws
OSLO, June 6 (Reuters) - Norway strengthened its rape laws on Friday by criminalising sex without explicit consent, joining a growing list of countries to widen the definition of sexual attacks.
Up to now, prosecutors have had to show that an attacker used violence or threatening behaviour, or had sexual intercourse with someone who was unable to resist, to secure a conviction for rape.
Under the new law passed by parliament, anyone who has sex with someone who has not consented to it by word or deed could be convicted of rape, even without violence.
Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland have all introduced consent-based rape laws in recent years.
Sweden changed the legal definition of rape in 2018 to sex without consent - a change that officials said resulted in a 75% rise in rape convictions.
Denmark followed in 2020 by passing a law that widened the circumstances that could constitute rape.
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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My father is a cannibal and ate my mother when I was nine - he pushed me to the brink of insanity and made me sell my soul to the devil… but I turned my life around and now I'm a mum myself
Jamie-Lee Arrow was nine years old when she lost her identity and became 'the cannibal's daughter'. Her father, Isakin Jonsson, murdered his girlfriend Helle Christensen - a mother of five who Jamie saw as a 'second mum'. In what became known as one of Sweden 's most horrifying killings, Jonsson slit Ms Christensen's throat before decapitating her and eating part of her body. The disturbed killer, now kown to the world as the 'Skara cannibal', was convicted of his girlfriend's murder in 2011 and remanded in a psychiatric unit. But his detention did not prevent him from terrorising his daughter, who has described how Jonsson tried to drag her into his dark and twisted world throughout her childhood and teenage years. 'My dad definitely brainwashed me and has done since I was three years old,' Ms Arrow told MailOnline. 'He has always exposed me to the dark side, with the devil and demons and evil spirits, and that has always been a part of my reality - a part of my everyday life. 'He was preparing my brain for it for as long as I remember because he wanted me to be him. He always said that: "You are me, you are a better version of me".' Jonsson groomed his daughter during phone calls and hospital visits, describing to her how he carried out the killing, gifting her macabre Voodoo dolls, and finally forcing her to 'sell her soul' to the devil. This was the trigger that pushed her to the brink of insanity at just 18, Ms Arrow said, and she was only saved when her mother learned what her 'sick' father was putting her through. Just a few years later, Ms Arrow has turned her life around - surviving her father's abuse, severe mental illness, PTSD and addiction. The 23-year-old is now a mother herself and in a loving relationship - and has vowed, for the sake of her two young children, to never see her killer father again. She bravely reunited with Jonsson in a recent Investigation Discovery documentary, having not seen him for four years. Surprising him at the facility where he is under supervision, she described feeling as though the father she knew and loved as a child had finally returned. 'He started crying and hugged me and seemed happy to see me,' she said. 'I so wanted to believe that he had changed and that he had become the dad I always wanted and needed.' But her hopes were soon dashed, and it became all too clear to Ms Arrow that her father was still the troubled man who had killed his girlfriend. 'He sent me a sick text message where he threatened me and my family if I ever reached out to him again,' she said. 'After I met him during the production, I made my mind up that he can never, ever in a million years be a part of my life again. 'So that's difficult - I finally got closure, but I'm also grieving a person who is still alive. 'He will always be in the back of my head, but I know that I will never see him again. 'Mostly for the sake of my kids, so they are never going to be exposed to that darkness.' Describing why she wanted to share her story, she said in the documentary: 'I want people to understand the darkness I came from and that I actually managed to get myself out from under it. 'I still struggle with feeling like I am my own person and that my dad has got nothing to do with who I am.' Ms Arrow's parents divorced when she was very young and she lived with her mum for most of her childhood. Her dad went to prison the week after her birth for robbery, and while he was in and out of jail she had no contact with him at all until the age of three. 'I then started seeing my dad on a regular basis,' she said. 'My mum let me see him because she knew I wanted to, they had shared custody and she didn't know how bad it was at my dad's house.' She would visit him at his rented home in Skara on the weekends, and soon started spending time with Ms Christensen as well, who her father began seeing when she was six. 'Both of them were in a really bad state mentally, they met at a psychiatric institution, so she was herself not very well mentally,' Jamie explained. 'They were not good for each other, it was a very toxic relationship. 'They were fighting all the time, the fights were really bad. It would go from we were laughing, having the best time, and then in one second it could switch. 'They would both turn into monsters and did not care about me.' She said the couple constantly provoked each other, and that her dad would often respond to Ms Christensen's taunting by saying he would kill her. 'She would not care, she would keep going. I would scream "Stop! Don't say that! He's going to kill you!" but she wouldn't listen to me. 'That was going on from the start, from when they met. I was certain that one day he would just pull out a knife and kill her in front of me.' 'The feeling they gave me every time they were fighting was that he was going to kill either her or me. I was always fearing for my life or her life.' Ms Arrow said she was often forced to hide when the couple were fighting, and that they used her as a 'tool' against each other in their rows. The most violent argument she ever witnessed between the two came just days before her father killed Ms Christensen. 'The last time I saw Hele they had the worst fight ever. 'She had cooked me a meal, and the last thing that she said to me was: "Enjoy your food, because this is the last time I will ever cook for you - he's going to kill me." 'That was the last thing she said to me. I completely believed her, because I myself was frightened for my life. 'Because of their fight that day, I decided then that I never wanted to come back to his house.' Thankfully, Ms Arrow did not return to her father's house again. 'I was supposed to be there the weekend that he killed her,' she revealed. 'My dad had said he could not have me that weekend and cancelled on the Thursday. He committed the murder on the Friday.' On November 12, 2010, after going to the shops to buy alcohol, Jonsson jumped on Christensen as she lay reading in bed, pinned her down and slit her throat. She died instantly. The depraved killer then decapitated her corpse and cut off flesh from her arm, which he took to the kitchen, fried and ate. After the savage murder, Jonsson called the police and confessed, saying he had 'no idea' what he had done but had 'woken up'. Ms Arrow, who was staying with her grandmother at the time, was taken to see her mum Janette. 'Helle is dead,' Janette told her nine-year-old daughter as she tried to hold back tears. 'I immediately asked: "Was it dad?" and she said yes and started crying even more,' Ms Arrow said. 'I was devastated, panicking and screaming. It felt like something broke inside of me. 'The next day I woke up and felt nothing. That went on for years after that, I became a very cold person, all of my personality just vanished. 'I wasn't Jamie anymore, I was just this daughter of a famous murderer and cannibal.' While her mum tried to protect her from the outside world during her childhood and didn't tell her the full extent of her father's crimes, Ms Arrow gradually learned the truth of what Jonsson had done to her stepmum. 'For some time I didn't go to school. My mum tried not to expose me to the news, she didn't want me to find out exactly what happened, because I only knew my dad had killed his girlfriend, I didn't know that he was a cannibal too. 'But everyone at school knew, everyone in my neighbourhood knew, everyone was looking at me with different eyes, it felt like I was robbed of my identity. 'I remember the first time I accidentally saw him on the cover of a newspaper, I saw the word cannibal. I didn't know what that meant. 'A few years passed and then I actually googled the word and I found out what it was - but I went into denial because it was just so gross, I didn't want it to be true.' Ms Arrow maintained regular contact with her dad during those years, calling and visiting him more than her family realised. Her trauma meant she struggled with severe mental health and addiction problems as a teenager, making her even more vulnerable to her dad's manipulation. 'He turned me against everyone around me, against my mum, my friends, my family, he made himself the centre of my world. He was my everything at that time. 'He made me believe that he was the only one that truly loved me and truly cared about me - that it was me and him against the world. 'Me and my dad didn't talk about it, but then when I was 17 he brought up the murder. 'He walked me through the murder, describing exactly how he went through with it. 'That was the first time it just became so real to me, that he had done that. The first time that I accepted it as the truth, that he had done such a horrible thing.' Despite the horrific nature of what she had learned, Ms Arrow said she was 'brainwashed' and continued seeing her dad. 'It got to a point, when I was 18, where I was so trapped in that darkness that I felt like I was going insane. I hated everything about life. I just didn't want to live in that dark world that he had created for me. 'So I went to my dad and said: "Dad, I'm one second away from killing myself. What am I supposed to do?" And his solution for that was to sell my soul to the devil. 'That was like this big turning point for me, because when we had gone through with the ritual and everything it was like there was no turning back. 'I felt I couldn't die because then I would go to hell, and I couldn't live because my soul was sold to the devil. I felt stuck and I panicked. 'That night at home I felt like I was going to lose it. I screamed to my mother to come to me because I wanted to say some last words to her before I went insane. 'It was my mum who rescued me. I realised that it was my dad who had made me feel like that. 'I just remember my mum holding me and saying, "Jamie, why haven't you said anything? I didn't know he was this sick. You are light and love, Jamie. You are nothing like him!" 'She was my saviour. I am so grateful that I had my mum that night. I don't know what I would have done without her.' It was the wake-up call she needed, and from that point Ms Arrow has bravely worked to break the cycle of generational trauma - something she believes she has finally achieved. 'It has been quite a journey. The heeling process actually began when I fell pregnant. 'I had promised myself that if I ever become a mum, I will be the best mum in the world, and I will never, ever let my children experience what I have experienced in my life.' She immediately stopped drinking and smoking and threw herself into a healthy lifestyle for her unborn child. 'I gave myself nine months to become the best version of me and I succeeded in doing that, though I still struggle some days.' 'I could never have done any of this without my kids,' she said. 'You know how they say there's light at the end of the tunnel - I feel like I am now living in that light.' Ms Arrow is now telling her story in the hope of helping others to 'find light over darkness'. She is planning to leave Sweden for Portugal with her partner and children this year, where she dreams of building a community for people 'in a similar situation to me'. 'People who might be struggling with addiction, depression, who might have had difficult childhoods - those are the people I am trying to help to heel,' she said. While initially worried about sharing details of her uniquely harrowing experiences on social media, Ms Arrow now says she has no regrets and has been overwhelmed by the response. 'It's been amazing, I did not know how the world would react to my story, but I have been met with so much love and understanding,' she said. 'People are writing to me every minute, I'm just being overflown with love. 'They are confirming that I am inspiring them and spreading hope, and that is exactly what my purpose is now.'
The Independent
7 hours ago
- The Independent
Finland accuses senior crew of Russia-linked vessel in damage of undersea power cable in Baltic Sea
Finnish authorities have accused senior officers of a Russia-linked vessel that damaged undersea cables last year between Finland and Estonia of criminal offenses related to the wreckage. They say the oil tanker, the Eagle S, dragged its anchor to damage the Estlink-2 power cable and communication links between Finland and Estonia on Dec. 25. The Kremlin previously denied involvement in damaging the infrastructure, which provides power and communication for thousands of Europeans. The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands, but has been described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union's executive commission as part of Russia's shadow fleet of fuel tankers. Those are aging vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to evade Western sanctions amid the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance. Russia's use of the vessels has raised environmental concerns about accidents given their age and uncertain insurance coverage. For the West, the incidents are a test of resolve in the face of what are believed to be widespread sabotage attacks in Europe allegedly linked to Moscow following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Eagle S was carrying 35,000 tons of oil and investigators allege it left a drag trail with its anchor for almost 100 kilometers (62 miles) on the sea bed before it was stopped and escorted to the vicinity of a Finnish port. The senior officers, whose names were not made public, were the master, the chief mate and the second mate, Finnish police said in a statement Friday. The trio was responsible for the safe passage, navigation and operation of the tanker and are suspected of aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with telecommunications. 'The criminal investigation has examined and assessed, among other things, the extent of their responsibility for the condition of the vessel and the degree to which they should have observed the anchor falling into the sea,' said Detective Chief Inspector Sami Liimatainen, who is leading the case for the National Bureau of Investigation. The investigators' findings have been referred to Finnish prosecutors for possible charges. The damage to the Estlink 2, which can provide about half of the electricity needs for Estonia in winter, did not disrupt service, although it did drive up energy prices in the Baltic nations. The cable is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) long and is located at a depth of 90 meters (295 feet) at its deepest point, across one of the busiest shipping lanes in Europe. The undersea cables and pipelines that crisscross the sea link Nordic, Baltic and central European countries, promote trade, energy security and, in some cases, reduce dependence on Russian energy resources.
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Billionaire who was convicted of hiding his wife's body in a barricaded room for two months becomes a Sir
A Swedish billionaire who hid his wife's body in a barricaded room for two months has been knighted for his services to the arts. Hans Kristian Rausing was so distraught by the passing of his first wife in 2012 that he could not 'confront the reality' of her death and 'could not cope' without her. So Eva, who died of suspected heart failure and drug use aged 48, was left in the bedroom they shared upstairs wrapped in bin bags and bed linen. Mr Rausing was also struggling with addiction at the time and was only caught when he was arrested for driving erratically in Wandsworth eight weeks later. Drug paraphernalia was found in the car and the heir to the Tetrapak fortune tested positive to cocaine, morphine, diazepam and temazepam. The father-of-four was sentenced to ten months in jail, suspended for two years, after he was found guilty of preventing the decent and lawful burial of his wife. The billionaire received an additional two-month suspended sentence for driving under the influence. More than a decade later, Mr Rausing will now become a Sir thanks to his contributions to the art industry since he turned his life around. The philanthropist has donated to art institutions like the National Gallery and supported charities throughout the pandemic by giving them hundreds of millions of pounds. Much of Mr Rausing's transformation has been accredited to his second wife, Julia, who brought 'Hans back from appalling grief' and 'helped him find joy in life again', according to a friend who told The Independent. In the years since they wed, she had dedicated herself to a life of philanthropy along with her husband, whose friends have said that his main satisfaction in life has always been giving money to good causes. Around £50million is given to British charities every year through the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust, making it one of the largest philanthropic funds in the UK. Most recently they provided a £18million 'lifeline' for small and medium charities under the Charity Survival Fund in 2020, as well as a £16.5million emergency donation for other Covid causes, including a £1million donation for the Mail Force campaign. The friend said: 'They were palpably in love and affectionate towards each other and were a very touching couple who focused most of their time on how to give away money to those in need. 'They were also discreetly social while she also for many years had to battle cancer. Without a doubt, she was responsible for bringing Hans back from appalling grief and helping him find joy in life again.' Julia died last year from cancer aged 63, leaving behind what chair of the chairty commission Orlando Fraser called a 'literally incredibly philanthropic legacy'.
