Jeroen emotionally says in his victim statement that today he ‘stood behind his 17-year-old self’. Where he didn’t dare say ‘no’ then, he does now. In multiples. “You were someone with a professional career like I envisioned. You were a role model, you saw potential in me and I trusted you.”
The tennis coach says that he regularly had sex with Jeroen in his parked car in the Amsterdamse Bos. According to Jeroen, this has happened twenty to thirty times, often before training in the early morning. From S.: “Not so often!”
End of sexual relationship
In 2012, Jeroen Van S. said during a car ride that he no longer wanted to have sex with him because it was becoming too complex. According to Van S., he honored that. When the judge asks specifically, he says that nothing happened after that and he no longer had feelings for Jeroen.
According to Van S., his ex-wife in particular made Jeroen dependent, but the Public Prosecution Service finds that too easy an explanation. “He was not dependent on me, because he could train anywhere. In the tennis world, the player is the coach’s boss, not the other way around.”
Yet Van S. (and his ex-wife) are accused of isolating Jeroen from the outside world ‘in the interests of his tennis career’. For example, he was only allowed to have limited contact with his parents, no contact with a good friend and no relationships with girls. If he did not comply, he would risk his tennis career, he was told.
Jeroen’s brother
When Jeroen decides to leave Van S.’s home in 2018, his affair with his wife also comes to an end. Van S. has just met Jeroen’s younger brother Gijs*, who is around 11 years old. The father of Gijs and Jeroen wants Van S. to also give Gijs private lessons, a request to which he meets.
From the age of 15, Van S. has traveled with Gijs to tournaments abroad. There, but also in the Netherlands, Van S. is said to have committed fornication several times. According to the Public Prosecution Service, things did not go as far as with his brother. Big difference: Gijs was a minor at the time, which means that Van S. is suspected of fornication in that case.
Ultimately, Gijs was the first to file a report against Van S., after which Jeroen did the same after encouragement from the police. Finally it became Van S. arrested in 2022.
Compensation
Jeroen and Gijs both want compensation of 23,000 euros and 8,000 euros (rounded) respectively, a large part of which is immaterial. Despite dozens of treatments, the brothers are still in deep trouble with themselves and have not yet been released from mental health care.
In an hour-long argument, Van S.’s lawyer tries to convince the court, among other things, that the brothers’ traumas do not necessarily have to be the result of their relationship with Van S. He also questions the arguments with which the Public Prosecution Service argues that Jeroen’s sexual acts were not voluntary.
The court demands a prison sentence of four years, of which six months is conditional, and a professional and contact ban. The court needs more time than usual for the verdict. The verdict is on November 5 at 12.45 pm.
*The names Jeroen and Gijs have been fictitious. Their real names are known to the editors.