Daan, a business administration student and third-year member of the Utrecht Student Corps (USC), had “not had too much to drink” that evening. Maybe “seven or eight beers,” he tells the three criminal judges. So he was “relatively sharp” and can still remember the night of April 20 to 21, 2024.
But how is it possible that the student, a member of the Utrecht women’s association UVSV affiliated with USC, filed a report against him for allegedly raping her? And where the bruises on her arms and legs and the scratches on her neck came from? He doesn’t know, he says in the court in Utrecht. His memory is very different from hers.
It started so festively, with a so-called date dinner in the USC fraternity house where Daan has a room – just behind the Maliebaan in Utrecht. The male residents had invited members of UVSV for an evening full of song and dance. The couples were formed in advance and the outfits were coordinated. Daan and his date went as clown duo Bassie and Adriaan.
The evening before dinner, Daan (then 18) and the student saw each other at the club in the center of Utrecht. They didn’t know each other well, but that was no problem. They would dress up, they agreed, and both make up as clowns. They kissed at the club, and the student noticed that Daan grabbed her roughly by the throat. She didn’t make a big deal about it.
A day later they danced together, with Daan’s housemates and their dates. They ate, drank heavily and kissed again, until around midnight the student said she was tired. She thought her house, about a twenty-minute bike ride away, was too far and she asked if she could stay the night, upstairs in Daan’s bunk bed.
‘Fancy sex’
He was fine with that and while she lay down in bed with her clothes on and her face to the wall, he showered off the make-up. After that, Daan told the court, “he felt like having sex.” He lay behind the student and started kissing and groping her.
Readings differ as to what happened next. According to the student, she repeatedly said that she didn’t want to, that she was tired, that she wanted to sleep, that he had to stop. But Daan grabbed her roughly by her neck, wrists and legs. She couldn’t move in the small space between the bunk bed and the ceiling, she said when she filed a report a few weeks later. He also fingered her roughly and tried in vain to penetrate her with his penis for thirty seconds. “Just shut up,” he allegedly said, “don’t be so difficult” and “now jerk me off.”
I did press my penis against her buttocks, but when I noticed that she didn’t want to, I stopped
Only after the student said to him “I have to take my medicine, otherwise I might die”, Daan calmed down, according to her statement in the criminal file. He guided her down the stairs, asked downstairs if she wanted to send him a text when she was home – and closed the door.
Daan himself has very different memories, he says in court – while his father sits behind him. In his experience, he was not too rough or pushy, she responded to his advances and he stopped when she asked. “I never heard ‘no’ or ‘ouch’ for a moment,” he says. “I did press my penis against her buttocks, but when I noticed that she did not want to do so, I stopped. And when she wanted to leave, I helped her down.”
The student’s lecture is confirmed by two witnesses, to whom she told her story in panic that same night. The file also contains photos of bruises on her arm, thigh and neck, for which Daan has no explanation.
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Mutual consent
It is not just any rape case, Tuesday afternoon in the Utrecht court. The USC men’s corps has been under fire for a number of years due to excessive drinking and inappropriate behavior by male members, with parents and reunion members (former members) allegedly looking away.
This image is reinforced by a number of recent criminal cases. Last year, prominent USC member Sam van Z. was sentenced to three years in prison for raping two students. And this summer, the Public Prosecution Service announced that it is prosecuting four USC members for distributing a so-called ‘banga list’ containing names, personal details and photos of UVSV students.
When the banga lists were leaked, I was glad that my daughter was not on there. But a month later this happened to her
The public prosecutor showed himself unrelenting on Tuesday. Daan “deserves punishment” because he lazily went for his own comfort. And the Utrecht student world must receive “a clear signal that mutual consent is required for sex,” says the officer. He demands twenty months in prison – six months of which are conditional.
Daan’s lawyer André Seebregts believes an acquittal is appropriate. Alcohol was involved, the file offers room for different interpretations and the student gave varying signals, he says. Moreover, Daan has already been sufficiently punished: “the Utrecht association world is small”, his name and career prospects have been “already damaged by the issue”.
For the time being, the latter mainly applies to the women of UVSV – they are separate associations in Utrecht. Daan has not been welcome at their society for quite some time, the student says after the session. But they still regularly meet at the men’s club and in the Woolloomooloo, the discotheque right next to it run by the USC men.
The latter is painful for the victim’s family members. They, like many friends and a number of UVSV members, also came to the courtroom. “I don’t accept that that boy is still allowed to enter anywhere at USC, that there have been no sanctions at all,” her uncle says outside the court after the hearing.
“When the banga lists leaked, I was glad that my daughter was not on there. All those girls are in her year group,” the victim’s mother said after the case. “But this happened to her a month later, in a USC house. Something urgently needs to be done at the Utrecht corps.”
The verdict is scheduled for December 16.
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