Swedish Centre Party Member of the European Parliament Fredrick Federley announced he would be taking a break from politics after his now-former partner was convicted of a slew of child sex abuse charges.
Mr Federley published the announcement on his Facebook page, saying: “It is written on some sites now that a person who was previously close to me is convicted of extremely serious crimes. I’m afraid that’s true.”
“The crimes he has committed are absolutely horrific, indescribable and completely unforgivable. We have now gone our separate ways,” he added, in comments reported by Expressen.
According to the newspaper, the MEP’s former partner was convicted of 22 counts of sexual assault of a child regarding incidents that took place in 2013 and 2014. He was also found guilty of 38 counts of child pornography offences and six counts of sexual harassment.
The 42-year-old was active in the European Parliament and was the vice-chairman of the liberal Renew Europe group, which also counts anti-Brexit Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt as a member.
Center Party secretary Michael Arthursson commented on the announcement made by Federely saying, “Of course, we take this very seriously. These are truly heinous crimes for which this person is convicted. Fredrick Federley has been feeling bad for some time, which has escalated recently.”
Arthursson added that Federeley was seeking psychological help and has applied for sick leave.
The conviction of Federeley’s former partner comes three years after a leading member of Pride Stockholm was fired after it emerged he had been convicted of raping a 13-year-old in 2011.
Britta Davidsohn, the president of Stockholm Pride at the time, claimed that she did not know of the man’s past, but a board meeting revealed some others in the organisation did.
In 2019 another member of a Swedish gay pride movement was caught sending sexually explicit messages online to a person they thought was a 14-year-old boy. The account was actually being run at the time by undercover journalists.