If this was a Daily Mail story they’d have got benefit scrounging asylum seeking witch into the headline somehow. But it doesn’t hail from these shores – it is a Swedish story of stupidity.

A Stockholm woman who approached a psychic medium for help to free her from the evil which she felt had begotten her, has been awarded damages after claiming fraud when results were less than satisfactory.

The case dates back to November 2002 when the woman reported the psychic medium to the police alleging fraud. The woman claimed that she had paid the medium 29,000 kronor ($4,300) in 2000 seeking to “burn away all the evil” and help her to recover from mental illness.

The woman had no receipt to forward to the police but was able to divulge her surname, approximate age and address.

After a second person came forward with the same complaint, the psychic was then told of the fraud suspicions against her during a police interview held in February 2004.

The psychic obviously foresaw a future involving bars…and not the good sort…so she went on the run. But even in that prediction she was wrong, because in May of this year the police gave up and the charges were dropped.

Always useful to know that justice in Sweden works only until the authorities get bored.

Furthermore the plaintiff, knowing that the medium had no money, was heavily in debt and probably realising that the whole thing was a load of nonsense anyway, decided against bothering with a civil case for damages.

But just to top the whole pyramid of nonsense, Sweden’s Chancellor of Justice has now instructed the National Courts Administration to pay the accuser compensation because she didn’t get her European Convention “right” to watch a trial.

Compensation, effectively, for being stupid enough to get defrauded in the first place.

Madness, yes, but not as stupid as this story from two days ago about a 57 year old plumber from Stockholm who groomed a 13 year old girl he met on a contact website for sex. When she didn’t turn up to meet him, he tracked down her father and demanded the return of 500 kroner (about £50) he’d given her. He got a fine for doing it.

Sweden? There must be something in the water over there. Goodness knows what circus will kick off when they get Assange in the dock.