Janke Dekker will step down immediately as chairman of the Mores hotline, she reports in a personal statement via her lawyer Richard Korver. She does so in response to the revelations of de Volkskrant about her husband Tom Egbers, presenter at NOS Sport. Since 2018, Mores has been the reporting center for undesirable behavior in the cultural sector, which includes the television world. The Volkskrant published this weekend an investigation to the NOS Sport editors, where an unsafe working climate has prevailed for the past twenty years. On Friday, the NOS already announced that the editors-in-chief of NOS Sport will step down “in the long term”, after dozens of reports to an external confidential adviser due to “bullying behaviour, sexual intimacy, discrimination, verbal aggression and integrity issues”.
The Volkskrant describes, among other things, how in 2009 a woman reported to the editors-in-chief about presenter Egbers. According to that report, the then 22-year-old trainee was approached shortly after her start by the then 48-year-old Egbers, who sent her numerous text messages, including at night. She falls for his advances and they kiss a number of times, she reports to the editor-in-chief. She also tells the editors-in-chief that in the late summer of 2008, when the affair has already ended, she is approached by Egbers’ wife Janke Dekker. Under pressure from Dekker, she would have admitted the affair. Egbers then begins to bully and intimidate the woman. She reports it, describes it the newspaper, but nothing changes. A year later, the employee herself leaves NOS Sport. A NOS colleague sends her another email around that time, and says she is aware of “several situations of transgressive behavior by Egbers towards women on the NOS editorial staff”.
Open and objective
Egbers left de Volkskrant know how to look at events differently, but regret the affair. Dekker said he doubted whether de Volkskrant “operates openly and objectively”, the article read, and did not want to comment further. But that, Dekker now writes, is not correct, according to her. She did indeed not want to answer an e-mail with questions from the newspaper, but according to Dekker she wanted to speak with the journalists, and the newspaper ultimately refused to accede to that request.
In addition, Dekker reports that after the affair ended, she experienced “a series of incidents [meemaakten], as a result of which we as a family received protection and guidance from the police for a longer period of time”. At RTL News informs her lawyer Korver that the family was “burdened at that time [heeft] of stalking-like behavior. That got out of hand, so much so that they went to the police and that measures were taken”. It is unclear from whom this stalking behavior originated. The Volkskrant stated in the investigative article that the editor-in-chief of NOS Sport promised to talk to Egbers and advised the woman to “go to the police if this continues”, meaning Egbers’ bullying behavior.
The Volkskrant said on Sunday afternoon in a response to Dekkers’ statement that it “would like the conversation before publication [was] entered into with Ms Dekker”, and has also made several proposals to that effect. “But unfortunately this was not an option for her.” The newspaper also says it has not received any concrete answers from Dekkers to questions about police protection. “Egbers only stated in a general sense that he did not want any disclosure of police protection. The Volkskrant received no confirmation as to why police protection had been initiated nor that it concerned the young woman in our article.”