Christopher Gillberg, the psychiatrist at the centre of a dispute about granting access to research data in Sweden, has been given a conditional sentence and fined 37 500 kronor (£2800; $4800; £4000) plus legal costs of 80 000 kronor for “misuse of office” by the lower criminal court in Gothenburg.

The conditional sentence obliges him not to commit any similar offences for a period of two years.

The court ruled that Gillberg, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Gothenburg University and a world expert in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, had acted “wilfully.”

He had refused to follow his employer's directives to make his research data available to the university management and had been in contempt of court, the court …