Law firm Van Doorne has completed the external investigation into the alleged abuses at The Voice of Holland after more than fourteen months. The agency has established, among other things, that in the period from April 30, 2015 to January 12, 2022, inappropriate behavior by various people in various forms took place at The Voice of Holland. They would have been reported, but no action seems to have been taken.
The investigation includes a complaint from a candidate of The Voice, while it remains unclear how this has been acted upon. “The complaint related to both WhatsApp messages and verbal comments with a sexual connotation from a The Voice creator towards a candidate. Various actions have been taken in response to the complaint, including an apology from the accused person and a commitment that the candidate would not be alone in a room with the accused person. There is no evidence of a direct written record of management’s actions. Given the time that has passed and the apparent lack of a written record, there remains uncertainty about which executives have been informed exactly, what information has been provided and what other measures have been taken.”
Four (former) employees also approached various managers with reports of inappropriate behaviour. It concerned ‘verbal comments, digital messages (e.g. via WhatsApp) and physical contact’ by ‘several individuals’. One of the employees told Van Doorne that for months she received messages and comments of a sexual nature from someone within the program whom she saw as “powerful”.
The cases of those four would have been passed on to several executives. A verbal warning would have been given, but nothing seems to have been done with the reports of the former employees. “The information regarding the four (former) employees does not seem to have been included in the verbal warning. We have received various explanations for this, and we have not been able to determine the relevant causal chain with certainty,” says Van Doorne.
Van Doorne was asked by ITV last January to conduct an independent investigation after the episode of BOOS about alleged misconduct at The Voice. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) also investigated the allegations after the broadcast of BOOS. Earlier this month, the OM announced that former coach Ali B and former band leader Jeroen Rietbergen are being prosecuted for sex offenses related to the TV program. The investigation against ex-coach Marco Borsato around The Voice has been dropped due to a lack of evidence. However, there is another sex investigation against him that is not related to the talent show.
According to Van Doorne’s report, “no inappropriate behavior” had taken place among candidates of The Voice Kids or The Voice Senior in the same period. Producer ITV says in a response that he is shocked. The producer also says that no “cross-border conduct has been reported to the management of ITV in the UK at any time before January 2022”.