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Swedish cop warned over 'temporary massage parlour'

David Landes
David Landes - [email protected]
Swedish cop warned over 'temporary massage parlour'

A shirtless Swedish police officer who was caught massaging a scantily-clad woman in the back of a Gothenburg police station has been disciplined for damaging the public’s confidence in the police.

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The officer, who joined the police force in 1977, opened his temporary massage parlour behind the police station in the Skår neighbourhood of Gothenburg in May 2009.

Passersby couldn’t help but notice the bare-chested police officer rubbing down a women lying prone on a massage table wearing nothing but a pair of thong-underwear.

Another cop recognised the man as a fellow officer and alerted his superiors. The woman, who was not employed by the police, had been invited to the station by the fleet-fingered police officer, in violation of police regulations.

The 2009 incident wasn’t the first time the officer had been reported for his freelance massage activity.

In February 2005, he had called up a woman who had been fined following a traffic stop the day before and offered a massage to “help her get over” the fines.

Under questioning following the incident, the soft-handed officer admitted to offering the massage, adding at the time that he had “offered similar services previously”.

An internal investigation into professional misconduct was eventually closed without any formal action taken against the officer.

Instead, superiors had a conversation with him after which he promised to “strictly differentiate” between his role as a police officer and that of a recreational masseuse.

But the officer was apparently unable to curb his need to offer rub downs to female civilians, and has now been issued with a formal warning.

According to a ruling by the disciplinary board of the National Police Board (Rikspolisstyrelsen), the officer “used the agency’s space for private activities without permission”.

“The way in which you did it drew attention from the public, which as a consequence means there is a risk that the public’s confidence in the police has been damaged,” wrote police disciplinary board chair Bengt Svensson in his ruling on the matter.

The officer now has three weeks to appeal the ruling.

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