When Sabrina Huisman gets out of the car after a long day at work, she sees two police officers standing at her home. It is June 16, 2006, the Dutch national team has just defeated Ivory Coast (2-1) at the World Cup: “Everything was orange.” The officers banged on the window of the nursery of her baby Dani, who is fifteen weeks old. “I live there,” she shouts.
Also read the news: Crime victim often misses compensation
There is a note on the table in the living room. “I’m sorry about everything,” it reads. Sabrina runs into the nursery and sees her son lying in his crib, gasping for breath. When the ambulance siren sounds in the distance, a sinister thought occurs. Could her partner have done something to Dani? And immediately: would that also have happened to their first deceased son Jari (then one month old)?
The police find Sabrina’s partner at the time on a square in the middle of their hometown of Gouda. He cries and confesses immediately. “While I was changing the diaper, I saw the baby start to pee. At that moment something snapped in me,” the police report said. He is later sentenced to two years in prison and TBS for shaking their two children Dani and Jari.
The judge also rules that he must pay Sabrina compensation of 450,000 euros. But that amount is far from being paid. The father has been in debt restructuring since last year and in two years the entire amount will be forgiven. In other words: the perpetrator is covered by the largest part of the compensation.
Getting paid compensation often causes problems for victims of serious crimes, see Victim Support Netherlands and the Victim Support Fund. Perpetrators often get away with it. This is partly because it is too complicated for victims to receive the amount they are entitled to.
Jari and Danic
Sabrina Huisman (40) is sitting next to her father Ton at the kitchen table. Pictures of Jari and Dani hang on the wall and their initials are immortalized in ink on Ton’s knuckles. Out of the closet in the corner comes a stream of pink and purple toys from her daughters, ages 3 and 11, which she got with her new partner.
Sabrina has long doubted whether she should tell the story about her deceased sons, because she is afraid that people will see her as a money wolf. But she sees that there is a structural problem with the payment of compensation for victims of serious crimes, and therefore wants to have this conversation. “Even if I only get paid a quarter a month, at least he sees that there is still a debt. A debt that reminds him how he changed my life.”
Sabrina is 21 when she meets the future father of her children. He, a 26-year-old professional soldier, and she, who work in care for the disabled, soon buy a house in Gouda. In early 2004, when they have been together for two years, Sabrina is pregnant. On November 25, 2004, Jari is born, a healthy son. “I was very happy.” Four weeks later, her son is alone with his father for the first time. Sabrina goes to her mother, who has gone through her back. When she comes home a few hours later, her boyfriend says that Jari didn’t want a bottle. She goes to check on her son, but it is difficult for him to wake up. The doctor immediately sends them to the hospital.
Investigations follow that show that Jari has severe brain damage. Initially, Sabrina blames herself. Did she put him down too hard in his crib? A few days later, things seem to become more clear: her boyfriend tells the hospital social worker that he had Jari on his lap for a bottle, but that he didn’t want to drink. If the remote control falls, Jari falls to the ground, is his explanation. And because he didn’t respond, his father shook him. He didn’t say it before out of shame.
“It may all sound a bit silly now,” she says, “but I felt terrible for him then, too.” Soon the next blow comes: Jari’s brain is so damaged that he will be a greenhouse plant for the rest of his life. On December 28, 2004, Sabrina’s son, one month old, died. His parents take him to the crematorium together, in a wicker basket. “It felt like shared suffering.”
setup
Everything is different from then on. Sabrina feels guilty, is empty with grief. She goes into grief counseling with her boyfriend, they both go back to work. The police invite Sabrina and her father Ton to the station and ask if they have ever thought of deliberately. Ton expresses everyone’s feeling there: “I put two hands in the fire for him,” he tells the police.
Sabrina has a new desire to have children. She is a bit ashamed of it, because Jari cannot be replaced. They go for it in consultation with their therapist. On February 20, 2006, she gave birth to Dani. When Sabrina comes home from the dentist after four weeks, she sees that her son’s bottom is blue. Dani had fallen from his hands, his father says, and fell onto the wood. “If you think back, that was the moment I knew: this is not right.”
“But you also suppress it,” says Sabrina’s father Ton.
Sabrina: “You don’t want it.”
Ton: „You ignore it. Because there is no such thing.”
When she hears her second son gasping in his crib on June 16, 2006, the truth sinks in. Her boyfriend must have done it. Earlier that day, she called him from work. In the background she heard Dani crying. “Give him his pacifier and then call me back,” she said. But she heard nothing for hours. At about ten o’clock in the evening there is contact again. “My friend said: ‘Dani is sleeping, nothing is wrong.’ Later it turned out that he had already done it.”
If you think back, that was the moment I knew: this isn’t right
Sabrina Huisman
When the police arrest him that same evening, he tells that he has shaken his son. During the interrogations, he confesses that he also did that to Jari in 2004. He wanted to give the bottle to Jari, but it was clogged in the teat. He shook out of anger. He wanted Dani to stop crying. He shakes it until it lies “like a doll” in his arms.
Dani is rushed to the hospital. He is not going to survive, is the initial message. But when he is taken off the ventilator, he still starts breathing on his own. He turns out to be seriously multiple handicapped and has so much brain damage that he can’t eat himself.
Although Sabrina’s partner, with whom she has since broken off, has confessed, she is also not allowed to see her son. Sabrina is deprived of parental rights at the request of the Child Protection Board and Dani goes to a foster family; Sabrina has been too naive. That decision will be reversed after a year.
Also read about domestic violence: ‘The problem is huge and affects all layers of society’
Cell and TBS
In 2006, her ex-boyfriend received two years in prison and TBS for attempted manslaughter on Dani, and in 2008 he received a one-year suspended sentence for shaking Jari, because he had already started his TBS treatment.
When Dani returns to live with Sabrina, she stops working to care for her son full-time. Because her boyfriend is incarcerated, she pays for the debts that arise because she can no longer pay the mortgage. The cost of caring for Dani is high. She is going through a deep valley. “Can I handle life, I wondered.”
In 2007 she met her current boyfriend. She has two daughters with him. Dani just lay there in his bedroom, constricting his lungs, and contracting multiple pneumonia. Sometimes he smiles, but there is no real contact.
Sabrina believes that the perpetrator should contribute to the care and other damage she has suffered. She starts a new trial and takes her ex-boyfriend to civil court. She could also have asked for compensation in the earlier criminal proceedings, but then she would have had to ‘apply’ as a victim – a legal act that many victims are not familiar with. “I didn’t know that was possible,” says Sabrina.
A civil lawsuit has disadvantages for victims, because the compensation awarded is not advanced by the Dutch state, as is the case in serious criminal cases. If the civil court awards compensation, a victim must ensure that the money is paid, for example by seizing part of the offender’s income via a bailiff paid by himself.
On July 28, 2010, a civil court ruled that Sabrina was entitled to compensation of 450,000 euros, after a pediatrician determined that Dani has the life expectancy of a healthy child. Both parties agree on the amount, according to the minutes of the hearing. In it, Sabrina’s ex-boyfriend says that he will not defend against liability for Dani’s damage.
For a while, an amount is transferred monthly through the bailiff. If Sabrina’s ex-boyfriend is no longer incarcerated and goes back to work, that rises to 950 euros per month. Still, Sabrina and her new boyfriend are shooting in the red. Taking care of Dani costs a lot of money: special food, a special bus, diapers, medication. Dani died in 2015 from pneumonia. Sabrina’s ex never saw Dani again.
Debt collector
In the summer of 2019, a bailiff suddenly appears at the door, Sabrina recalls. Now that Dani has also died, his father no longer wants to pay. It culminates in a lawsuit, in which it becomes clear that, thirteen years after the verdict, 62,500 euros have been paid to Sabrina. The reason for the new lawsuit: Dani’s death is an “unforeseen circumstance,” according to his father. He finds it unreasonable to pay the compensation, because “the actual damage caused by Dani’s death has been much lower.” He wants back the money he paid after the death.
Sabrina is assisted by attorney Richard Korver. The judge in The Hague rejects everything. You just have to pay. According to the judge, Dani’s death is not a circumstance that allows the verdict to be revoked. In addition, the judge stated, it was specifically discussed during a hearing that Dani is at greater risk if he were to develop pneumonia.
A year later, Sabrina is called. Her ex wants to go into debt restructuring. This means, explains Korver, that Sabrina’s ex has to live on the minimum for three years, and then is free of his debt. He would not be able to pay more than 35,000 euros during that period. The rest will be waived. “The bizarre thing here is that my client is the only creditor,” Korver says. “The debt restructuring is not intended to waive damages imposed after a serious violent crime has been committed.”
A civil lawsuit has disadvantages for victims. Damages awarded are not advanced by the state, as is the case in criminal cases
The judge in Breda thinks otherwise. In April last year, Sabrina Huisman’s ex-boyfriend was admitted to debt restructuring. The judge says he has paid off “to the best of his ability” for the past five years.
According to the law and jurisprudence, you cannot enter debt restructuring if you have to pay compensation for a criminal offense. Lawyer Korver has submitted a request for early termination of the Debt Rescheduling Natural Persons Act.
Also read an opinion piece from 2019: Help, the Natural Persons Debt Rescheduling Act is drowning!
Perpetrators too often end up paying compensation, according to Langzs (Foundation of victim advocates), Victim Support Netherlands and the Victim Support Fund. If criminal courts consider cases to be too complicated to assess during criminal proceedings, they regularly refer them to civil courts. If compensation is awarded there, offenders often escape payment, for example because they have no money. According to research by the Victim Support Fund, a group of a thousand relatives and victims with serious damage are currently dealing with this.
Sabrina Huisman sometimes doubts whether she should continue with the legal battle for compensation. But it stings too much, she says. “I’ve lost almost everything in my life. He cannot escape from that debt.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of April 21, 2022
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