A Swedish mother has been charged with child abuse after films emerged of her apparently forcing beer and cigarettes on her three year-old son.
According to local paper Sydsvenskan, the mobile phone footage shows the 32 year-old woman scolding her child for not inhaling the smoke properly and warning him not to “snitch” to social services.
“If this gets on YouTube, I’ll swear I have no baby,” the woman allegedly said as she lit the cigarette for the toddler. She goes on to tell the boy, “Take a toke then you little… inhale then… come on now. Inhale a little. Light it up now, for goodness sake, get the damned thing going.”
According to the paper, the film shows other people in the group laughing as the boy coughs and then giving him a can of beer to drink while the mother sits idly by. When someone jokes about social services finding out, she reportedly flicks the boy on his forehead, calls him a “squealer” and tells him not to “snitch”.
When being questioned by police over the incident, the adults in the group claim the child was given the cigarette so he could develop a distaste for tobacco, and that the beer can was filled with water. Officers did not accept this version of events, however, and have charged the mother with breaking Swedish alcohol laws and child abuse laws.