On Friday, the court in Utrecht imposed community service of fifty and sixty hours on four people who threatened and insulted writer Pim Lammers, half of which were suspended. A fifth suspect was acquitted. This is confirmed by the court NRC. Earlier on Friday, the Public Prosecution Service demanded fifty hours of community service. The threats followed a number of social media circulating passages of a nearly decade-old story by the writer. Those passages were circulated shortly after it was announced that Lammers would write the Children’s Book Week poem. He withdrew after those threats as the writer of that poem.
A 34-year-old woman from Amsterdam received the highest sentence: sixty hours of community service, thirty hours of which were suspended. In a post on social media, she wrote that she would have wanted to throw a rock at him if he came to read. She agreed that this came across as threatening, she said in court. Her sentence is higher than that of the other three, because her Instagram message to Lammers was sent publicly, to which others responded. The individuals who received reduced community service threatened the writers through private messages. They received fifty hours of community service, of which 25 were suspended.
A 33-year-old woman from Venlo was the first to appear before the police judge on Friday and was one of the people who received the lower community service order. She sent Lammers a message via social media in which she called him a pedo and wrote “they should hang you”. She herself does not think she has gone too far, she told the magistrate. “I had no intention of threatening him. I wanted to express my opinion. I yelled at him more than threatened.” A 22-year-old man from Hoevelaken and a 31-year-old man from Kaatsheuvel received the same sentence.
The only person acquitted, a 19-year-old man from Venlo, sent to Lammers: “If I find you, I will destroy you”. He said he suspects that one of his friends sent this message through his phone. The Public Prosecution Service does not believe this, but the judge was not sure and therefore acquitted him.
The police judge spoke on Friday about feelings of unrest and fear in society that caused the threats. “Users of social media often close their eyes to the consequences of their internet use. There are limits to what you can send and I think you have overstepped the boundaries. Facts like this need to be addressed. It must be clear to society as a whole that criminal law sets limits on what you can say to and about each other.”
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Hundreds of hate messages
At the beginning of this year, the writer received hundreds of hate messages after passages from his literary story for adults Trainer (2015) circulated on social media. The story is about the relationship between a teenage boy and his soccer coach. Based on those passages, several threateners called the writer a pedophile.
In a letter read by the prosecutor, Lammers, who was not present in court, said that he has not yet processed the death threats and that he no longer enjoys his work. “Never before has that threat been so massive, so massive and so frightening,” the letter said. “What kind of society do we live in when even children’s authors have to be protected.”
Lammers, 29, has written several books for adults and children. One of his children’s books, The little lamb that is a pig, is the first Dutch picture book about transgender. That book earned him a Zilveren Griffel in 2018.