The life of lawyer Fred van Rossem from Oss has changed forever after he was almost strangled by a client in February. That happened in the penitentiary institution (PI) in Vught. On Thursday it was announced that a therapist from the PI happened to the same thing last month. After the attack, a post -traumatic stress disorder was established at Van Rossum and is more than ever wary. “It is a new consciousness that people can be so unpredictable,” he says.
The news that an employee of the Pi Vught was mistreated during a therapy session by a client came in hard on Thursday at Van Rossem. The woman was worked towards the ground and almost strangled. By screaming, the employee managed to break free from the suspect. Colleagues managed to take the prisoner to an isolation cell.
The woman had a mobile alarm button with which she could warn her colleagues, just like all employees of the heavy guard prison in Vught. A spokesperson for the PI confirms this on Thursday afternoon.
Van Rossem did not have a portable emergency button in his hand in February. He only received the fixed alarm button on the wall after three attempts. The abuse is still fresh on his retina. Just like the therapist of the PI, the lawyer was almost strangled by his client. “He jumped to me like a predator. It was raining strokes on my head, he tried to strangle me. I could only think of that emergency button. It was my life. I had to get to that button,” Van Rossem said at the time.
“I live in a new reality.”
After the abuse, the lawyer considered stopping his work. Yet he is still working, but due to the abuse his work has changed forever. The day when he heard the news of the new incident, he had just completed his last therapy session.
“I have lost the sharp edges because of the therapy, but I live in a new reality. Just like people who have had a near-death experience, I have also experienced something that my life has changed,” he says.
For example, the lawyer is extra wary when he comes to clients at home and he sometimes decides to meet somewhere else. “It is a new consciousness that people are so unpredictable. At that time, no alarm bells were ringing beforehand, because I had seen the client before. But you don’t know people well so suddenly an anger can ignore,” he says.
Also at the police station where he sometimes meets clients who have just been arrested, he is more wary than before the abuse. “These clients come fresh from the street, so that the emotion is high and sometimes they are still under the influence,” he says.
When he was recently at the police station, the room he receives clients was full. A cop said that he could also talk to the client in jail. “But there is no alarm button so I waited for space to be free,” says Van Rossem.
“I feel more inhibited in my work.”
These are thoughts that the lawyer has considered more since that one day in February. “I feel more inhibited in my work since the abuse,” he says. After the incident, Van Rossem made a call at the Pi Vught to give lawyers a mobile alarm button that they always have to hand and can easily be pressed.
The prison did not see any solution at the time, because according to them these types of attacks are not very common and a portable emergency button can be easily taken away. Even after the abuse of the therapist, the PI sees no reason to give a portable emergency button to lawyers.
“The mistreatment of the employee and the lawyer are two very different incidents. Visitors are received in a visitor environment where there are employees in the area who can intervene,” says the spokesperson.
Van Rossem finds it disappointing that the emergency button will not be in Vught. “I was recently in a women’s prison in Limburg and there I got an emergency button in my hand. Apparently that is not possible in the most secure prison in our country,” he says.