A few weeks back we reported on some serious allegations levied towards Necrophobic frontman Tobias Sidegard by Swedish authorities. Among the domestic abuse charges, his wife alleged she was beaten and forced into having sex with Tobias. He was also accused of beating his children with a bullwhip. Tobias denied all the charges but it looks like the courts didn't quite side with him.
Metal Insider got wind of the verdict that was handed down earlier today:
Sidegard was found guilty of two charges of “abuse.” He was originally accused of “severe abuse to a female partner.” The court found that testimony from his ex-wife Linda was not found altogether trustworthy, in that she hadn’t been totally forthcoming about her own drug use. That seems to have played a part in the reduced sentence. The court still had full trust in the testimony the children gave, however. As part of the term, he has to pay Linda 16,000 kronor plus interest, which works out to around $2,500. It’s not known whether time already served will shorten his sentence.
As a result, Tobias was ordered to serve six months in prison, as opposed to the original 18 months that he was sentenced to. This does not look good for the promotional opportunities of Necrophobic’s new album, Womb of Lilithu, which will still be released October 25th, as of this writing. It'd be hard for any members of the band to do press without being confronted with this story, and the band can't exactly tour, unless they find a replacement vocalist. For their part, the band had previously released a comment saying "no comment."
