In court, she exercised her right to speak: “I woke up in the hospital, scared and confused. My injuries were so severe that the doctors couldn’t believe it had been caused by one blow. All I could do was cry.”
This woman from Uithoorn suffered skull fractures and a hemorrhage in her brain. Her nose has been crooked since that night and she has permanent hearing damage and balance problems. But mentally she is no longer the same.
“The suspect’s action will have an effect on my life forever. I have suffered a year’s delay in my studies and can never go to the cafes in Uithoorn again. I no longer feel safe there. If someone walks straight towards me, I feel fear and a lot of sadness.”
Argument about playing time for a football match
The judge asked Z. whether he wants treatment for a possible anger problem, but he sees no pattern himself. Yet things went wrong less than twelve hours before he delivered the sledgehammer blow at the café.
That afternoon there was a disturbance at a football match because Z.’s friends had not lined up. “I came to take them apart,” Z. explained his role. According to him, the football coach then dealt the first blow. “I defended myself against him. Later he ran onto the field with a chain lock, but was stopped by bystanders.”