Despite being linked to hundreds of thefts by DNA evidence, CCTV footage and even being caught in the act, the British-Norwegian has been sitting pretty in a law loophole for years, having been told he is too ill to be imprisoned but not ill enough to be sent to a psychiatric institution.

According to police, the man has committed more than 100 crimes at offices, shops and restaurants over the past six months alone, mostly taking small items such as mobile phones or computers. After the new conclusion was drawn by the court-appointed psychiatrist, he will now be held in custody for at least a month while his most recent misdemeanours are investigated fully.

Speaking to Aften newspaper, Rikke Morck, from the Bolivar Brasserie & Bar in Majorstuen, said they have suffered several break-ins at the hands of the accused. “It’s just incredible he’s been allowed to get away with this for so long,” she said. “We must be able to protect the public from a person like this. I’m a lawyer myself, and this has defied all feelings of justice.”

“This is a great relief,” added prosecutor Vegard Rodas. “He has caused a lot of damage to many businesses without us being able to react effectively.”

The 23 year-old said several UFOs, which had apparently come to kidnap him from his home in Dalarna, exploded after he fired at them.

Police were called by the mother of the man’s child on the evening of 15th July after he started ‘defending their home’ with live rounds. According to local newspaper Dala-Demokraten, it took several hours to talk the man down, and at least one more shot was fired at the imaginary spaceships before he gave up his weapon.

“We do not believe that the threats voiced were anything other than the desperation of a confused person,” wrote the police in a memorandum, according to Dala-Demokraten.

It is suspected the 23 year-old, who has a previous manslaughter conviction, may have been suffering from a severe psychiatric disturbance at the time of the apparent invasion.

The child and two others came to live with the man and his wife after leaving their home country of the Congo in 1999. Shortly after their arrival, the couple apparently began to hear unexplained noises, prompting them to conclude that a curse was haunting their home.

When one of the children awoke with scratches on Christmas Eve, the couple and another adult attempted to perform an exorcism, which consisted of beating out the bad spirits. The seven year-old died of her injuries.

The crime was “committed in an imaginary cultural context where the influence of evil spirits, witches’ spells and the power of curses are by no means strange, and are instead problems of an everyday nature,” the board reported. It added that the usual risk assessment methodology “lacks any experience of phenomena of this kind” and is therefore insufficient to assess the case.

It was observed, however, that the man has demonstrated a complete absence of “aggressive reactionary behaviour” during his time in jail so far, and that he has “completely distanced himself from his previous world-view which incorporated witchcraft, evil spirits and obsession”, reports The Local.

The board concluded that although the man seems to be at low risk of a repeat offence due to his exemplary behaviour in prison, it lacks the methods to assess his criminal past.

The only indicator of past affiliation is an unfinished Copenhagen FC tattoo on the man’s back. Police have paraded pictures round pubs and tattoo parlours near where he was found on February 24, but so far no one appears to recognise him.

“He speaks a little bit, using both Danish and English words, but nothing that we can string together to form any meaning,” deputy assistant commissioner Tommy Keil of Amager Police told Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Officers were also unable to take his prints as the tips of several fingers have been worn down. “Whether it is due to hard physical work or whether it’s done on purpose is impossible to say,” Kiel said.

Superintendent Rorbye Petersen said he is baffled by the case. “It’s strange to meet a man who seems genuinely interested in revealing his identity, but who simply can’t,” he told Berlingske Tidende newspaper. “It can make you wonder whether he’s just pulling our legs. We can only guess, and the funny thing about this case is that you can’t help coming up with all sorts of theories,” he added, The Copenhagen Post reported.

(Photos for illustration purposes only: not directly related to story)

Defence forces in Finland are considering taking a leaf out of Denmark’s book and are gearing up to employ a group of contract therapists and psychologists to help their emotionally battered troops work through their issues.

“There has not been a need for this in the past,” Jukka Leskinen of the National Defence College told Helsingin Sanomat. “Finland had traditionally kept itself disengaged from combat operations.” Leskinen added that troops stationed in Afghanistan have faced exceptionally high levels of risk and stress.

Many soldiers report feeling isolated from society and misunderstood by their families once their deployment ends. Troops will be asked to fill out a questionnaire on returning home and will be offered psychotherapy if they are deemed to have mental health problems.

The man was described as being in a strange mental situation and under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.

If his choice of crash site was deliberate, it did not work. He was arrested on site and taken to a police cell where the reason for his crash did not become clear.

Despite breaking the big window and stopping his car in the department’s waiting room, nobody was hurt, Visir.is reports.

A new report has recommended that educational institutions be allowed to revoke students’ study privileges in instances of drug abuse, demonstrations of violent behaviour or mental instability.

The recommendations come from a Ministry of Education working group, and consist of proposals aimed at the prevention of allowing mentally ill or violent people into fields where child safety could be compromised. Plans have also been mooted for extended such legislation into other areas such as traffic, customer and patient safety.

“The problem is that educational institutions have not had the means in these situations, in situations where a student is in a field for which they are unfit, there have not been ways to interrupt their education or intervene,” said Henna Virkkunen, the education minister. These fields would primarily be around health and education, where students with prior convictions for aggressive behaviour or drug abuse may be prohibited from study.

The prohibition would not be permanent, meaning students may re-apply once their circumstances have been addressed and appropriately improved.

The proposals are being circulated across the Finnish government with implementation forecast as early as next year.

Titus Dickens came from a loving and stable family and was entertaining his grandfather by quoting Churchill’s speeches at just 18 months of age. Exceptionally talented in art, singing and acting, Titus had the highest I.Q. his psychologist had ever seen.

But Titus’s gift slowly turned into a curse, The Telegraph reports. Buckling under the pressure to excel, and dispirited by interactions with his peers, he spiralled into an addictive search for ‘the ultimate high’ through drugs and stimulants; be they legal, illegal or prescribed. His mother, Clare Dickens says the addictive tendencies were not helped by a three year stint in Reykjavik’s light summers and dark winters when he was 10-13 years-old. The family’s globe-trotting lifestyle with the diplomatic service was probably unhelpful in general, his mother believes with hindsight.

Titus’s narcotic disposition was accompanied by an increasingly unstable mental state, culminating in the diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Titus spent some time in rehab and appeared to be doing well: so well that his mother asked him to write his life story down with her, in order to make a book. She had always been impressed by her son’s ability to analyse his own thoughts and feelings and felt it would be a useful exercise for him and for others to read.

Before the book was completed, at the age of 25 (in 2006) Titus committed suicide by jumping out of his parents’ moving car and throwing himself off a bridge in New York. Experts believe he may have been trying to save his parents from the voices in his head telling him to kill them.

His mother has since completed the book in her son’s honour. It has been published in Iceland, because: “[Iceland’s] high rate of bipolar disorder has led to rehab programmes with a 70 percent success rate. Sufferers are shown how to look after themselves and avoid the addictions that lead one in four to commit suicide,” The Telegraph says.

The book is called A Dangerous Gift and the original Telegraph article can be read here.

The judges decided the circumstantial evidence presented was sufficient to prove that Schurrer broke into the home of her ex-boyfriend’s current lover in the central Swedish town of Arboga and committed the murders. Using a “hammer or hammer-like object” Schurrer repeatedly struck the toddlers and their mother with full intent to kill.

Schurrer pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming that she had nothing to do with the murders. She will now undergo a 4-6 week psychiatric evaluation before the court decides on her sentence. The children, aged one and three, died from their injuries but the mother survived and gave her testimony at the trial.

Although much of the evidence is circumstantial, as the murder weapon was never found and no DNA evidence links Schurrer to the crime, the prosecutor pieced together a comprehensive case against the German using some 50 witnesses and video evidence.

The defence is considering the options for an appeal.