Community service for ‘completely out of hand civilian arrest’ in Hoogeveen

A 57-year-old man from Hoogeveen has been sentenced to 180 hours of work for locking up and assaulting an alleged intruder. His 53-year-old wife has to perform a community service of 120 hours.

Both came home from a party at around 1 am in early June 2019 when the woman said she saw two men climbing out of the garden. The husband took his wife at her word and jumped into their van in search of the perpetrators. At a roundabout near their home, he saw two tinted men walking.

One of them was thrown into the van by the Hoogevener. At their home, he pulled the victim from the van, and together with his wife, they kicked and beat the man. Both then dragged the man into their home.

Neighbors called the police. The officers saw a man sitting on the couch in the house. Towards them the woman shouted: “There is that black whopper.” She then slapped the man on the couch and yelled: “The next time I’ll kill you.”

The woman was under the influence of alcohol. “A citizen’s arrest completely out of hand”, that is how the public prosecutor described the action of the couple from Hoogeveen two weeks ago. He demanded six months in prison for the man and three months for the woman.

The judge agrees with the public prosecutor that the suspects used disproportionate force. In the punishment, he took into account that the couple themselves also realized that it had gone too far. Moreover, he took into account that the duo had to wait unnecessarily long for the settlement of their case.

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