Thursday, June 14, 2012

Anders Breivik Was Challenging and Aggressive Child, Court Hears

THE GUARDIAN: Forensic psychiatrists give evidence to Oslo court where Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in Norway last year

Norwegian social workers considered removing Anders Behring Breivik from his mother when he was four years old because she was unable to cope with his behaviour, described in court as challenging, clinging, hyperactive and aggressive.

The claim came as it emerged that for a brief period in the 1980s Breivik and his sister were taken away from his mother – who was separated from his father – and put into respite care at her request.

The evidence of social problems beginning in Breivik's childhood came in a detailed psychiatric assessment presented to the Oslo court where Breivik, 33, is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a bombing and shooting massacre in Norway last summer, including scores of young people shot at a political camp on the island of Utøya.

The evidence was being given by two forensic psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby and Synne Sørheim, who controversially ruled that Breivik was suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia" when he carried out the murders. » | Peter Beaumont in Oslo | Thursday, June 14, 2012

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