Read One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway for Free Online Page A

intervention.’
    As Anders’s mother had requested respite care in the form of a weekend home, the centre suggested an initial effort to build on this, with foster parents who understood that the arrangement mightbecome permanent.
    The Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry emphasised to the local child welfare office that this was a matter of importance, and that work should start at once on finding a suitable weekend home. The centre offered its assistance in evaluating foster homes, mediating between the family and the respite home and remaining involved to ensure things were moving in the rightdirection.
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    Then something happened that botched the plan. Jens Breivik, who was now stationed in Paris, received the report from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Through his lawyer, he demanded immediate transfer of Anders’s care to him. The diplomat wanted an interim injunction that would give him emergency custody of the boy straight away, while he explored permanentcustody through the courts. Wenche, who had welcomed the prospect of weekend respite care, now refused point-blank to accept any help at all. It might give her ex-husband an advantage in court. Wenche again hired the lawyer who had helped her with the divorce and dividing the assets. He wrote that ‘respite in the form of a foster home for Anders is a solution that my client finds utterly objectionable.Furthermore, the need for respite ceased to apply a long time ago.’
    At that point the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the child welfare office stood back and awaited the outcome of the case at Oslo City Court. In October 1983 the court ruled that Anders’s situation did not require urgent action and that the boy could live with his mother until the main court case started.
    As JensBreivik understood it, the court had concluded there was no serious negligence on Wenche’s part and he therefore had little prospect of winning custody of his son. In the early 1980s it was in any case unusual for a court to find in a father’s favour in child custody cases. The mother generally took priority.
    Jens Breivik had not seen his son for three years. Now he gave up his demand to takecharge of Anders’s care and the case was never brought before the court. His lawyer wrote to the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that Jens Breivik and his current wife had begun to have their doubts after they learned about the preliminary meeting at Oslo City Court. Initially, ‘their impression had been that Anders was in a critical state, and they had not hesitated to open their hometo him. Now, however, they feel they will have to fight to get Anders. This is a new development and they feel they have been thrust into a situation in which they had no intention of becoming embroiled.’
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    But the young psychologist at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry did not want to give up on Anders. Just a month after the City Court ruling, Arild Gjertsen asked thechild welfare authorities in Oslo to instigate standard proceedings to have Anders taken into care, that is, to separate him from his mother by force. Gjertsen emphasised that ‘We stand by our original conclusion that Anders’s care situation is so precarious that he is at risk of developing more serious psychopathology and we hereby restate our assessment that an alternative care situation is necessaryfor Anders, which we consider to be our duty under The Children’s Act § 12, cf. § 16a. Since the father has withdrawn his civil action, child welfare authority should take up the case on its own grounds.’
    In November of the same year, Wenche’s lawyer accused the psychologist of ‘monomanic victimisation’.
    ‘Admittedly I am not a psychologist, but in my thirty years of practice I have acquiredsomething young Gjertsen may be presumed to lack, namely a wide-ranging and detailed knowledge of human behaviour. On this basis I can express my