According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), a 19-year-old man from Groningen tried to rape a young woman on the train from Groningen to Assen last August. He was sentenced to 45 months in prison, of which 15 months were conditional.
He is also said to have been guilty of threats and assault. The man denies it to the judge. He was on his way to a friend that early that morning, the man said. He had lost his phone during the night on which a previously purchased NS ticket was stored. He bought a new ticket on the train without any problems.
According to him, he then wanted to call his friend to report the time of his arrival. He asked a young woman further down the train to let him use her phone. That was allowed. “But it all took too long for her and she grabbed her phone back,” the suspect said. He hit her and she pulled his hair. “We got into a fight, she was stronger.”
He went to the toilet with a nosebleed. Two NS employees spoke to him when he came out. According to the suspect, he was immediately accused of attacking a woman. “I said things then that I shouldn’t have said,” the man said. According to the conductors, the story is very different. They saw a girl walking on the train. Battered, with her pants open and partly undressed. She cried that she had been attacked by a man who wanted to have sex with her.
Unexpectedly, someone threw a coat over her head. She was then groped, she said. She managed to look under the coat and see her attacker. She described the man. The employees remembered a traveler with a nosebleed who went to the toilet. The man fit that description and they were waiting for him. It was the suspect who, according to the conductor, behaved aggressively. He threatened them and pushed and hit one of them.
At the police station the man did not want to talk or cooperate with a breath test. The summary investigation shows that the man was under the influence. According to a psychological examination, the suspect suffers from a personality disorder and is therefore less accountable. The man’s DNA was on the victim’s pants. At the height of her pubic area. “It’s because of the struggle, I think,” said the suspect. The public prosecutor sees this as support for the complainant’s story.
“And why was she undressed?” the prosecutor finds it illogical that the woman did this herself. According to her, there is sufficient evidence for a rape attempt. In addition, she also believes that the serious abuse of the woman and the abuse and threats to the employees have been proven. The Groninger’s criminal record weighs against him, the public prosecutor believes. The suspect has been receiving guidance for a long time, but it has been difficult, she said. The suspect has recently indicated that he is willing to cooperate in everything.
The 19-year-old’s lawyer said this was ‘a bizarre fight over the loan of a telephone’. “He says he had no sexual intention whatsoever,” the lawyer said. He asked for an acquittal for the rape attempt.
The court will make its ruling on February 13.
