A 31-year-old man from Kaatsheuvel was sentenced to 50 hours community service for threatening and insulting writer Pim Lammers before the police judge in Utrecht on Friday. Half of this sentence is suspended and must be carried out by the man if he commits another offense.
The man had to appear in court along with four other suspects. The police judge imposed community service of up to sixty hours on two men and two women for insulting and threatening. The public prosecutor had demanded fifty hours of community service. A fifth suspect was acquitted.
“It’s your turn young one!”
The man from Kaatsheuvel sent an app to Lammers in February with the words: ‘It’s your turn, young one!’. There was also an image of a knife. A day later he called the writer ‘Vieze pedo’ via a text message.
After the death threats, Lammers withdrew in February as a poet for the Children’s Book Week. He got those threats and insults because of an old adult story he wrote ten years ago. That was about a relationship between a teenage boy and his trainer. The suspects indicated that they were guided by influencers such as presenter Monique Smit and model Kim Feenstra. They had shared some sentences from the story online.
“Never before has that threat been so frightening.”
The police judge ruled that the threats to Lammers were serious. In a victim impact statement read by the prosecutor, Lammers said that he is still processing the death threats and that he no longer enjoys his work. “Never before has that threat been so massive, so massive and so frightening,” said Lammers about the hundreds of hate messages he received.