What was done to four girls while shopping in the summer of 2021 left a deep impression. This appears today in court, where a 44-year-old man has to appear for a series of assaults in his old city of Hoorn. “Assaulting me while I’m out on the town with girlfriends, what’s wrong with you?”
That’s what one of the girls says through the microphone. She addresses the court and the lawyer of the possible perpetrator, because the suspect EF is not present during the hearing due to ‘physical complaints’.
It all starts on September 6, 2021. A girl (13) is then standing with her friends in front of the Hema in the center of Hoorn. She suddenly feels a hand on her private parts. “What the fuck,” she yells. The man who does this then walks on calling.
A cover, the prosecutor suspects today. A day later it hit the same store again, when a peer felt a hand on her saddle while getting on her bicycle. “I was shocked when it happened. I panicked and I cycled away hard. After my girlfriends, no idea what had happened,” she says today.
Another day later, two girlfriends (12) walk unsuspectingly through the Kruidvat. Out of nowhere, they are touched on their buttocks in quick succession. They flee to a perfume shop around the corner. One of the friends sees the man walking and takes a picture, after which she calls her father.
He is a policeman and is looking for the perpetrator. He grabs him by the collar and hands him over to colleagues. Four girls eventually report the assault.
Two victims who are present at today’s hearing take the floor. “When I was assaulted, I felt sad and I cried a lot. Eighteen months later it still plays in my head. I have become much more careful and look around me. It made a big impression on me.”
Method the same
The four sex offenses of which 44-year-old F. is suspected, therefore, take place right after each other, on September 6, 7 and 8, 2021. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the working method is always the same. He would have approached the girls calling and from behind and touched them by their ultimate parts.
He would also have entered one of the victims with his fingers. After the man is arrested and interrogated, his phones are confiscated. The police find several racy photos of minors on one phone.
One photo is common. It would be about a child, where the man also comes across the floor. Police say they have warned the family. EF strongly denies that he groped the girls. He does admit that he went to the Kruidvat to do some shopping that afternoon. “To buy hair gel and a blue nail polish.”
He would indeed have seen a group of girls who are ‘quite busy’. “I asked if I could pass, and then I used the shopping cart to make room. But not in an aggressive way.” He also invokes his right to remain silent. His lawyer Vince Mes argues for community service, otherwise he would lose his job and home.
Security compromised
The public prosecutor sees it differently and demands a prison sentence of 8 months, half of which is conditional. According to her, the man did not want to cooperate with an investigation into his psychological condition. “They are brutal assaults, three days in a row and in broad daylight. Their sense of security has been affected, it shouldn’t be.”
According to her, EF would not have a shopping basket with him at all and he did not buy anything. “It bothered me for days. I didn’t sleep well and I wasn’t comfortable in my skin. Fortunately, the bad feeling eventually went away,” said one of the girls. “What possessed you that you assaulted me and others in broad daylight?”
The court will rule in the case in two weeks.