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Thursday, 21 May 2015 - 14:50
Police suspected of raping drunk woman
Two former police officers from Haarle and Enschede are in the court in Zwolle today on charges that they sexually abused a drunk woman in the back seat of their police car on February 20th, 2012.
The two officers,Sander L. and Bidjay D., allegedly had sex with the woman during working hours in a secluded spot near Raalte. The men were suspended the next day and later dismissed, according to tweets from RTV Oost from within the court.
On February 20th, 2012 the woman went out to celebrate Carnival. On the way home she was picked up by two officers in a police car, who said that they wanted to give her a lift home. According to the woman, they stopped on the way and the two officers raped her in the car. Sperm was found in the back of the car, belonging to D. Sperm was also found on the woman's jacket.
According to RTV Oost, D. initially explained the sperm in the back of the car by saying that he had sex with his wife in the car. He later changed the statement to that he had sex with another woman, not his wife, but also not the woman in question.
There is a dispute over what time the woman was picked up by the officers. According to the woman, she was picked up around midnight. According to the suspects, it was around 01:30 a.m. The case file includes text messages sent by the woman on that night. The messages stopped at 00:10 a.m. and then around 00:10 she texted a friend saying that she had sex with police officers.
There also seems to be some confusion regarding the route the suspects drove that night - the route the suspects describe differs from what the woman describes and the car's GPS system. According to the suspects, the car's GPS system has been known to give problems. Three expert witnesses were called in to explain the possible discrepancies in the tracking system. RTV Oost reports that the testimonies are very technical, with expert witnesses also disagreeing about the location of the police car.
The officers did not respond to a call for assistance at the time the woman says she was raped. According to the Public Prosecutor, the suspects distorted the service report to conceal the sexual abuse.
