Psychiatrist calls tampered Halloween sweets cowardly revenge

Forensic psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner describes putting nails in Halloween sweets as a cowardly act of revenge, ORF reports. She says offenders may feel their rights have been violated or that they have been slighted, and may turn to retaliation after failing to express their grievances.

Kastner said the geographic spread of incidents in Austria and Germany was surprising. She does not believe the same person was responsible for putting nails or other metal objects into sweets everywhere. Instead, she said, several people may have connected through social media and developed a shared strategy to punish things that had long angered them.

Anonymous offenders are unlikely to gain much attention, Kastner said, unless they belong to a group or network where members encourage and praise one another. She also cautioned against assuming that those responsible had considered the possible consequences. They may not have thought about the harm they could cause, or may simply not care, she said.

Rather than confronting the person they are angry with, offenders act anonymously, Kastner said. Giving children sweets containing nails shows extreme self-centredness, a lack of empathy and disregard for the possible consequences.

Recent incidents involving tampered Hipp jars in the spring and dental floss stretched across a road in Traun may create the impression that such cases are becoming more common, but Kastner said that could be a subjective perception. She said the Hipp jars case involved one person with a specific motive, while objects stretched across routes have occurred before. Halloween-related incidents, however, are new.

Kastner said there was no reason for excessive concern and warned against generalising from individual cases. She said cyclists did not need to check routes in advance, even though objects stretched across cycle paths sometimes occur. For next Halloween, she advised parents to check more carefully what their children bring home.