‘Headers’ in court: ‘He was out for 2 minutes and 52 seconds’

A 27-year-old man was beaten, kicked and beaten so badly that he lost consciousness. One of the perpetrators is said to have stamped his face with his walking plaster. That happened in November last year, on the Catharinaplein in Eindhoven. The surveillance footage was so intense that the police did not make it public. Although there were initially four suspects, only three of them are now suspected. They stood before the judge in the court of Den Bosch on Friday. The Public Prosecution Service demanded prison sentences and community service.

The camera images show four perpetrators, who rage at the victim. He allegedly got involved in an altercation that seemed to get out of hand and then became the target himself. The group broke loose with clenched fists. They kicked and punched the man’s body, face and head, even when he was unconscious.

The suspects say they do not know each other well. “From face and from chilling in the city”, suspect K. begins to tell. As a 20-year-old, he is the youngest of the three suspects and sits to the left of suspect A. The third suspect, Mr H., did not show up on Friday, just like the victim. H.’s lawyer is there.

2 minutes and 52 seconds
Suspect A. sits in the middle with an interpreter. He has been living in Veldhoven for a year, but has lived in the United Kingdom for many years. There he was expelled from the country after multiple violent crimes and possession of drugs and weapons. “Well, he had a knife and 100 grams of weed in his pocket,” his lawyer nuances. “That works a little differently there than here.”

The Public Prosecutor describes him as “the main aggressor” of the case, as the surveillance footage shows him kicking the victim’s head the longest and most, even after the man is unconscious on the ground. “He was gone for two minutes and 52 seconds,” the chairman reads. Defendant A. says he does not remember that moment.

‘If I drink alcohol, it gets out of hand’
“If I drink alcohol, it can get a little out of hand,” he explains. “I can see in the images that I am, but I am normally not like that”, A. continues. “Alcohol is not an excuse, but it is an explanation for why I did this.” This resulted in a sentence of 26 months in prison, of which eight months were suspended.

The other two suspects also say they had drunk a lot on the night of the crime. They don’t remember anything, apart from the images they could see on the surveillance camera. “I had drunk a little too much, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened,” concludes K. Actually, he thinks he can’t do anything about it himself. This is because of the alcohol: not because of him. When asked if he sees that as an excuse, he does not comment.

But his girlfriend’s testimony contradicts his words. “I know what he’s like when he drinks,” the 16-year-old girl has said. She’s talking about their group of friends. “With us it is one team, one task”, is read from her witness statement. She also told him that she wanted to stop her boyfriend, but she couldn’t.

community service
As the youngest, K. is punished more mildly. That’s because of his age, but mainly because he walked away from the fight during the actual ‘head-kicking’. His blows are seen as an attempt at aggravated assault. He is being sentenced to 200 days of community service, 100 of which is conditional. In addition, a suspended prison sentence, with a probationary period of two years.

That is not only the head-kick case of November 13, but also another violent offense in which K. became involved in September 2021. In addition, he assaulted a Polish man on the Eindhoven town hall square. “I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin last year,” he responds. He prefers not to say how that is possible.

‘Look only on spades’
Together with suspect A., absent H. is seen as one of the biggest aggressors of the crime. Laughing, he walked away from the unconscious victim, which he had stomped on with his walking cast. In his statement, he said that someone grabbed his broken leg, after which he wanted to defend himself. According to his lawyer, it looked like kicking, but it wasn’t.

The third suspect is facing a sentence of an unconditional prison sentence of 18 months, with six months probation. He will also be given a two-year probationary period.

The verdict will be announced in two weeks.

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