An 84-year-old woman from Klazienaveen gets the fright of her life when she wakes up in the middle of the night and feels a leg against her. There appears to be a half-naked man lying next to her.
The suspect, a 34-year-old immigrant worker from Croatia, admitted in the court in Assen on Tuesday that he entered the woman’s house through a window. The man says he vaguely remembers lying in bed with the woman. The elderly victim immediately started screaming loudly and shouting at him to leave. The suspect, who was only wearing a shirt, put on his pants and left fairly quickly.
According to the public prosecutor, the single woman did not know what to do. “She called a few people, but because of the night time no one answered. She doesn’t think to call the police, a reaction you often see in people who are panicking. Eventually she went back to bed.”
More declarations and notifications
The incident happened in August last year. The suspect was arrested in November. That summer and in the autumn, the police received several reports from women who had seen a naked man in their garden at their home at De Kap in Klazienaveen. He pleasured himself as they looked out the window. Sometimes he wore a mask. Sometimes not.
On November 19, a resident’s doorbell rang late in the evening. When she opened the door after a moment’s hesitation, a masturbating man was standing in front of her door. The next day the woman saw him again at the back door. She alerted the police.
Officers came to her. They were still investigating traces when a man walked past. The officers asked him if he had seen anything and showed him images taken of the pencil peddler. The passerby told the police that he recognized his roommate in the video. They lived nearby with other immigrant workers.
Sexual preference for older women
The suspect was arrested and during interrogations he admitted almost everything. The man seems to have a sexual preference for older women. On his phone is so-called granny porn found it. The suspect stated that he used speed and became excited by it. He did not want to say much about his sexual preference.
The public prosecutor calls it striking that all the victims, with the exception of one, are single women over the age of sixty. According to the officer, the man deliberately showed his genitals in plain view of women in Klazienaveen seven times, often pleasuring himself. In the case of the 84-year-old victim with whom he crawled into bed, he went one step further, according to the officer. According to the prosecutor, this is a far-reaching form of sexual assault.
Lawyer asks for release in vain
Lawyer Denise de Jong believes that there is no question of sexual assault. “There was no coercion or resistance. The woman told my client to open the lock on the garden door and leave. He did that.” The lawyer argued for community service. She asked the court to release the man immediately, because otherwise he might be held in pre-trial detention for longer than the sentence he would be sentenced to. The court did not agree with that.
The verdict will be delivered on February 20.