Patient blackmails doc after affair turns sour

A doctor in southern Sweden has reported a woman to the police after she blackmailed him for over one million kronor ($149,059) following their love affair.

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The pair met in Kronoberg in November last year, where the doctor claims the woman was in a bad state and needed help, wrote the Smålandsposten newspaper.

The doctor, who reported the woman to police at the end of April, revealed that the woman had “substance abuse problems” when they met, and that the woman was suicidal.

The man, who is 25 years older than the woman, helped the woman medically, but began to see her outside of the clinic for what he described after his personal interest in the case became an “intimate relationship”.

The man took the woman for forest walks, as well as on trips abroad, and allegedly bought her clothes and took her to dinner, wrote the paper.

Soon, however, the relationship took a turn for the worse, and as she was "disappointed in him", the woman demanded 300,000 kronor from the doctor, threatening to reveal their love affair to police, the press, and the man’s family.

The woman, who TT news agency refers to as "in her fifties", also claimed that the doctor had been lying regarding her health to the insurance agency (Försäkringskassan), making it harder for her to qualify for permanent sickness benefits.

The high-profile doctor claimed he could not risk the scandal, and succumbed to the extortion, which continued for months until he was forced to contact police in April as he was “close to collapsing” from the pressure, wrote the paper.

The doctor is making claims for 680,000 kronor, as 370,000 kronor of the sum has already been returned to him.

The woman, who is a resident of Växjö, southern Sweden, has subsequently gone missing and is believed to be abroad. An arrest warrant has been issued on the grounds of aggravated extortion.