Textual Analysis of a Recovered Memory Trial, Assisted by Computer Search for Keywords

The enormous Södertälje case involving both sexual abuse and the false memory syndrome, and 9 minor legal cases involving only alleged sexual abuse, are subjected to textual analysis assisted by computer techniques. It has often been asserted that sexual abuse cases are very difficult, and that external persons can only believe the injured party or the defendant. However, for each of these 10 cases textual analysis proved – not "beyond reasonable doubt", but in the full scientific sense – what had really happened. In none of these cases did the judges detect the crucial evidence and its implications, though in two of the cases the suspects were acquitted, though only because of gigantic labour by the defence team.In Sweden very few legal documents are classified, and even these are almost always handed out to researchers. There is no jury, and the judges are requested to justify in writing the verdict and the sentence. Moreover, the legal system does not acknowledge the concept of "impermissible evidence". Because of these features an entire science for analysing legal evidence has emerged since half a century, which are unknown in almost all other countries. Consequently, the Swedish legal system is important to international science, foremost jurisprudence and forensic psychology.