On Tuesday, the court in Dordrecht sentenced a 28-year-old man from Rotterdam to a three-month suspended prison sentence for secretly removing a condom during sex. By acquitting the man of rape, the court ignores the claim of the Public Prosecution Service (OM), which spoke of rape. The court judges the offense to be coercion. It is the first time that a man in the Netherlands has been convicted of so-called stealth. In another case, a 26-year-old man was acquitted. The OM had demanded a prison sentence of one year in both cases.
The public prosecutor then described the phenomenon as a “form of forced unsafe sex”. At present, stealthing is not a separate offense in the criminal code. The court did follow the Public Prosecution Service in its second demand. Justice had asked to sentence the suspect to coercion if rape could not be proven; the suspect allegedly forced the victim to “consume having unprotected sex with him”.
During a date in the summer of 2021, 28-year-old Khaldoun F. from Rotterdam would have agreed with a woman to use a condom during sex. Then he would have taken off the contraceptive unnoticed. The suspect, who was not present at the criminal case, has always denied this version. The court ruled that the perpetrator abused the trust that his bed partner had placed in him. His lawyer had previously argued for an acquittal. In the other case, 26-year-old Ruben R. from Rotterdam would have “forgotten” the condom after foreplay. He was acquitted.
Read also: Criminal rape or reprehensible deception: stealthing puts legal experts to the test