“At that moment I was just an asshole,” says a man (32) from Hoogeveen emotionally to the judges opposite him. He confessed that he abused his 13-year-old niece.
The girl had a round belly when one day in November 2021 she came with her boyfriend to her uncle and his girlfriend in Hoogeveen to watch football. They asked if the teenager was pregnant. While her boyfriend was watching football and her uncle’s girlfriend was busy with the kids, her uncle felt her stomach in the living room. He also looked the teenager in the eye. If they were watery, she could very well be pregnant, he believed.
He then took the girl to the kitchen, where the light was better to see everything properly, the child later told police. While the others stayed in the room, the now 32-year-old man started touching his niece there again. In this, according to the public prosecutor, he went much too far; she believes that rape can be proven, she says in court in Assen on Friday.
‘Shame on me’
The girl told the police that it lasted twenty to thirty seconds. At home she immediately told her mother. When she asked her brother about it, the Hoogevener first denied. He later admitted. He says he doesn’t know why he did it. “I still have no idea. I also sought help. People don’t notice, but inside I’m broken. I am deeply ashamed”, the man sobs. He has apologized to his niece. “I am very sorry. Her life is turned upside down.”
“The actions have taken place once, but you can only cross someone’s boundaries for the first time once. And that one time is enough to make someone feel unsafe and cause damage,” said the public prosecutor. She is demanding twenty months in prison, ten of which are suspended.
Therapy
De Hoogevener has an intellectual disability, research by a psychologist has shown. He suspects that this limitation played a role in what happened. The man sought help and voluntarily accepted treatment.
His lawyer asks the court to only sentence him to community service and a maximum of one day in prison, so that he can continue his treatment and keep his job.
Verdict: June 16.