Judge: Can't prove teens who yelled ‘faggot’ as they beat gay couple a

[Habukaz]

Judge: Can't prove teens who yelled ‘faggot’ as they beat gay couple are homophobic

http://anon.projectarchive.net/?http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/judge-teens-homo-faggot/

Four teenage boys in the Netherlands have been found guilty of assaulting a gay couple.

However, despite shouting anti-gay abuse at the men during the attack, a judge has said that it could not be proven that they had homophobic intent.

The attack happened Sunday 2 April 2017 in the town of Arnhem, near the German border. Jasper Vernes-Sewratan and his husband, Ronnie Sewratan-Vernes, aged 31 and 35, were on their way home from a party at local club Luxor Live.

They were walking hand-in-hand when they were attacked by the group. The men say the assailants beat them with bolt cutters. Ronnie lost four front teeth, as well as part of a fifth one, and suffered a severed lip. His husband suffered bruised ribs and bruises on his back and knee.

They say the boys said ‘homo’ and ‘flikker’ – the Dutch word for ‘faggot’ – during the assault.



Police initially arrested six young men and later charged four of them for the attack. Three of them are aged 17 and one is 15. Because of their age, they have not been named.

At a court in Arnhem on Monday, they were found guilty of assault and sentenced to between 80 and 160 hours of community service.

However, the judge said that although it was plausible that homophobic language was used against the victims, this did not prove homophobic intent behind the attack. He also said that it had not been proven that bolt cutters had been used in the attack.

The public prosecutor similarly did not ask for a homophobic motive to be taken into consideration for sentencing.

In addition to the community service hours, the attacked must also pay their victims financial compensation of €4,276.61 ($5,290) and €577.23 ($714).

 

[taurus2904]

I find the public prosecutor's and judge's reasoning odd, considering this happened in the Netherlands. Is Arnhem a relatively conservative area?

The hate-crime aspect seems cut-and-dry -- yelling faggot whilst beating a male couple who were holding hands on the street. The bolt cutter, perhaps calling for speculation, could be stipulated. It was, at least, an object large enough and heavy enough to break out four and a half teeth and bruise ribs!

The victims did get some financial restitution and the assailants were ordered to perform community service. Still, it's saddening.

 

[dargelos]

If this case were to be judged on the basis of the 'balance of probabilities' then would be easy to gain a conviction for hate crime. But since this is a serious criminal charge, the standard of proof required is 'beyond reasonable doubt' a much stricter test. This level of proof means that sometimes the offender does not get as much punishment as they deserve. That is the price we must pay to avoid others suffering greater punishment than they deserve.

 

[Stonecold]

I think if that is the case the system in the Netherlands is lacking.

 

[brmstn69]

You know, since "faggot" is such a common insult to throw around I'm sure it was pure coincidence that the victims were actually gay...

 

[dargelos]

Cocksucker was once an anti gay insult, now it is so widely used that it no longer means that the recipient likes to suck dick, it's just a general term of abuse. Motherfucker is an insult that at no time was intended to mean that anyone ever actualy did have sex with their own mother, it was always just another term of abuse. Faggot, as brmstn says, has become so commonplace that it is losing it's original meaning.
In the case being discussed it looks like the word was used in a homophobic way but all we know is what we have read in an excert from a newspaper article. The judge was not reading about it in a newspaper, he was actualy there, with access to police reports. He may have made a bad call, from this distance we cannot know, we are only guessing.

 

[topdog]

This seems to beg the question how one does, in fact, prove homophobic intent? What would have to happen to find someone guilty? If beating a gay couple while shouting homophobic slurs does not qualify, what does?

 

[dargelos]

How does one prove intent in any crime? In the courtroom, not in the court of public opinion. I believe this was a homophobic hate crime, so you you, so does everyone here. Our opinions are not proof. That has to be decided by a formal system, which sometimes throws up unpopular results. The alternative is populism in sentencing, which may be too hot a topic to discuss here.

 

[Stonecold]

According to the NLTimes, the lawyer representing the victims was disappointed that the sentences didn't reflect a hate-crime motive.

He said: "My clients came across the boys and were called homo, faggot and dirty because they are visibly gay. They were chased and assaulted by these boys."

On Facebook, Jasper and Ronnie also expressed their own disappointment and wrote: "What are we supposed to find as a victim of the verdict?

"Well, we are only moderately satisfied because at the end of the day we are in the same position, but we are not satisfied with the extent of the punishment.

"How can you give 160 and 80 hours after what we've been through for a year? How can you compare this to what we are going through every day?

"And how can you compare this to what we might expect in the future? Besides, I've been with no teeth for 53 weeks!"

The couple are hoping to appeal against the court's decision. The brutal attack sparked outrage in The Netherlands, which became the first country in the world to legalise equal marriage back in 2001, and men across the country held hands in solidarity with the couple.


This would have been labeled a hate crime in even the most conservative states in America. I wish this couple well on appeal.









The judge in this case has to have some personal issues or the criminals are well connected. Cases like this even in states like Alabama and Texas in the US would be labeled a hate crime.

 

[brmstn69]

According to the NLTimes, the lawyer representing the victims was disappointed that the sentences didn't reflect a hate-crime motive.

He said: "My clients came across the boys and were called homo, faggot and dirty because they are visibly gay. They were chased and assaulted by these boys."

On Facebook, Jasper and Ronnie also expressed their own disappointment and wrote: "What are we supposed to find as a victim of the verdict?

"Well, we are only moderately satisfied because at the end of the day we are in the same position, but we are not satisfied with the extent of the punishment.

"How can you give 160 and 80 hours after what we've been through for a year? How can you compare this to what we are going through every day?

"And how can you compare this to what we might expect in the future? Besides, I've been with no teeth for 53 weeks!"

The couple are hoping to appeal against the court's decision. The brutal attack sparked outrage in The Netherlands, which became the first country in the world to legalise equal marriage back in 2001, and men across the country held hands in solidarity with the couple.


This would have been labeled a hate crime in even the most conservative states in America. I wish this couple well on appeal.









The judge in this case has to have some personal issues or the criminals are well connected. Cases like this even in states like Alabama and Texas in the US would be labeled a hate crime.

My story about my own experience with gay bashers from another thread...

I'm not at all surprised. I was assaulted 10 years ago by two guys and a girl. I was riding a scooter through a parking lot and as I passed their group one of the guys hit me across the face with a tire iron, knocking me over with the bike on top of me. Then the guys proceeded to continue hitting, kicking, and beating me with the tire iron. As the girl shouted encouragement. I managed to get go my feet and fight the guys of for a but, then the girl pulled a pistol (Glock G22 .40 cal), pointed it at my head and tried to fire it. Stupid bitch didn't chamber a round first and not knowing that Glocks have no external safety, hit the magazine release dropping it to the ground. When the gun failed to fire, she settled on pistol whipping me while the two guys held me down. I suffered an orbital socket fracture and knee injuries that plague me to this day.

Their sentences? Both guys were already on parole for other crimes. They each got another 6 months added jail sentence. And the girl got time served, less than 4 months and 18 months probation.

Despite the laundry list of charges against them

Attempted murder
Assault and battery
Assault with intent to commit bodily harm
Assault with a deadly weapon
Armed robbery (They stole my scooter)
Possession of a firearm by a felon
Use of a firearm during the commission of a felony
Etc...

The prosecutor decided to go for an easy win and let them all plead down to a simple misdemeanor assault charge. And since the guys were already on parole, they were able to waive trial and go directly to jail, the girl was a minor (17) and her trial was a closed hearing. I was never given an opportunity to speak at or even attend any of these hearings....

Seems that no matter where you go the story is still the same. The simple fact is that the courts are more interested in getting another easy check in the win column than making an example of the suspects. They would rather allow defendants plead down to almost nothing than take it to trial...

 

[dargelos]

I remember that story of your beating well, it's one of those posts that were unforgetable. My own beating is something I can't write about, I was knocked out cold and couldn't remember a thing.
In the UK the mere presence of a firearm at a crime scene will guarantee a serious jail term for everyone involved, less so in the USA. Is it any consolation to consider the likelyhood of those young men being raped in prison, a more serious punishment than the court could have handed out?

 

[Stonecold]

The four young men in the Netherlands were given community service no jail time.

 

[ihno]

The four young men in the Netherlands were given community service no jail time.

That's the dutch law. In the netherlands they don't send 15year old people to prison as easily as they do in the USA f.e. The Netherlands have a prison rate of 59, the USA of 666.

I have to agree to dargelos here. You have to know more to make up your mind what was going on in the court and how the justice system is organized in a country you're talking about.

In Central Europe you have the Roman/Continental Law, which is different from the Anglosaxon model. It is based on laws - a penal code. So if you have a new crime like "hate crime" you have to prove both a so called subjective and objective side of the crime. Proving a hate crime means to bring some so called qualifications, like a motive or an intention.

Judges in Europe try to make their cases safe, which means they try to avoid a successful appeal/revision.

And it happens sometimes that it's not easy to prove a subjective motive and then you go with the objective side and sentence something that is more based on what actually happened. And not something that pleases the press but gets revoked in an appeal court.

I very much doubt a case of protection or corruption here, since the case spawned interest in the whole dutch nation (it would get noticed easily) and it would certainly come to an appeal. So judges will be especially careful, not careless in such a case.

We'll see if this get an appeal or not. It is then the duty of the appeal court to see if everything was correct or not.

 

[brmstn69]

I remember that story of your beating well, it's one of those posts that were unforgetable. My own beating is something I can't write about, I was knocked out cold and couldn't remember a thing.
In the UK the mere presence of a firearm at a crime scene will guarantee a serious jail term for everyone involved, less so in the USA. Is it any consolation to consider the likelyhood of those young men being raped in prison, a more serious punishment than the court could have handed out?

You didn't read the "epilogue" to my story, justice was served. Quite poetically I might add. One of the thugs was raped, and for good measure, they shoved the shiv up his ass. He'll be shitting in a bag the rest of his life. The girl, the one with the gun who actually tried to kill me. She was beaten to death by her boyfriend three weeks after he got out of prison. She died a slow, painful death of internal bleeding alone on the bathroom floor. And the other guy, he's the boyfriend who beat her to death. Currently serving life in prison without possibility of parole.

It's sad that I didn't have my pistol on me that day. Turns out that my .45 would have been much kinder than what fate did to them...

 

[Stonecold]

Dutch Lawmakers Hold Hands in Moving Show of Solidarity with Gay Couple Who Were Brutally Attacked
Two Dutch Politicians arrived hand-in-hand at the negotiations on the formation of a new Dutch government on Monday to show support for a gay couple brutally attacked over the weekend.
D66 leader Alexander Pechtold and party member Wouter Koolmees held hands in the powerful show of solidarity.

LGBT interest organization COC wrote a letter to Edith Schippers calling for the next government to give combating violence against gays and lesbians ‘top priority’. “Getting roughed up because you love each other is too horrible for words”, COC said in the letter. The organization calls for more severe punishments for anti-LGBT violence and more information classes at schools to prevent violence.
Pechtold “absolutely” agrees with the COC call, he said to Het Parool.
According to VVD leader Mark Rutte, combating LGBT violence should always be a priority, regardless of whether a new government formation is going on. “This should be a top priority anyway. Terrible what happened”, he said.
GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver agreed that stopping violence against LGBT people should always get attention. He called it “ludicrous” that there “are still people who think they should attack people” because of whom he or she likes. “That is bizarre, that’s just not normal and it does not fit in the Netherlands”, he said, according to the newspaper.

 

[dargelos]

You are only seeing that news article because events like that, ( as horrible as they are ) are so rare in countries like The Netherlands. Where levels of crime and homophobia are low, this is a front page story. In other countries this would be something so commonplace as to barely make the local paper. Their approach to law enforcement may look weak from a distance, and it is counterintuitive, but they are doing something that works. The stats show such starkly lower rates of violent crime, rape, sexual assault, drug addiction, incarceration, reoffending and so on, saving a fortune in taxpayers money and saving human lives. Few countries are in a position to lecture The Netherlands about keeping gay men and women safe.

 

[Stonecold]

dargelos

Few countries are in a position to lecture The Netherlands about keeping gay men and women safe.

I have to agree with you on that statement. I can't think of any countries that would be safer.

 

[dargelos]

Only Iceland, and it's a bit too cold there for you.

 

[Stonecold]

dargelos

Only Iceland, and it's a bit too cold there for you.

You sure have that right. I am now retired and my hubby could transfer with his company and we have thought about selling and getting out of the deep red south and moving up to Chicago.
We however had a terrible winter here in South Texas, the coldest in 35 years. We had a hard freeze 3 different nights this past year. This was the first winter in around 22 years that palm trees froze back at all and they took a real bad hit this last winter. The winter perennials and annuals also got hit bad as freeze cloth wasn't much help this year. I am happy all but 1 palm tree has recovered. We realized after this winter that we could not live any further north. I guess I really do suffer from cryophobia.
I just have to hope Mother Nature after hitting Southeast Texas so bad with hurricane Harvey last year will spare us from another for many years.