Canceled for years, a career that has been permanently damaged and millions of euros in lost income: Marco Borsato has been demolished. And everything turns out to be for nothing: the Public Prosecution Service has now decided not to appeal.
It has surprised experts and critics: according to John van den Heuvel, the burden of proof against Marco Borsato was merciless, but in reality it turned out to be wafer-thin. The judges even questioned the reliability of his complainant and it is not clear whether or not her ‘diary’, in reality a thin notebook, had been tampered with.
No appeal
Marco has been acquitted and apparently the Public Prosecution Service no longer has confidence in him, because they simply refuse to appeal. The Public Prosecution Service expects that there is a ‘very small chance’ that the Court would convict. And while they actually wanted the singer to disappear behind bars for five months.
The Public Prosecution Service disagrees with the judge on two points. “The first point concerns the reliability of the complainant’s statement. The Public Prosecution Service is still convinced of its reliability,” the press statement reads. And the court thinks slightly differently about this.
Support certificate
The second point concerns supporting evidence. “In this case, the supporting evidence provided by the Public Prosecution Service consisted of witness statements, WhatsApp messages, audio recordings, perceived emotions and texts in a diary.”
They support each other, the Public Prosecution Service believes, but: “The court has chosen to assess the evidence separately. The court subsequently concluded that there is no supporting evidence. Although the Public Prosecution Service does not share that conclusion, the court has legally substantiated its assessment of the evidence on every point.”
Exhausting
Now they no longer have confidence in it. “The Public Prosecution Service does not consider further investigation useful, now that the options for collecting supporting evidence have already been exhausted in this case. This means that, in the event of an appeal, the Court must make a decision based on the same file.”
“Taking all this into account, the Public Prosecution Service estimates that the chance that the Court will find proven is very small. Therefore, no appeal will be filed.”
Shame
RTL Boulevard star Rob Goossens thinks it is unprecedented. “The disgrace for the Public Prosecution Service is complete. What did they actually do there during those 4 years? Not working on a watertight case, in any case. Could they have hoped that a second victim would come forward and the evidence was conclusive?” he writes. X.
And media critic Victor Vlam: “It’s nice for Marco that it is all over now. Hopefully the girl’s family can also process this decision well. For serious allegations there must be evidence and there was none here. Time to continue.”