Parents worried that 14 y.o. Romy's rapist, killer will age out of treatment
Seven years after the rape and killing of 14-year-old Romy Nieuwburg, her parents are worried that the perpetrator will age out of treatment. The court of appeals will rule this week whether now-21-year-old Brian N.’s youth treatment will be turned into adult institutionalized treatment, AD reports.
Romy went missing on her way home from school on 2 June 2017. Her body was found in a farm ditch near the Stoutenburg estate in Achterveld a few hours later. She had been raped multiple times and killed.
During the trial, it turned out that then-14-year-old Brian N., a farm boy from Lunteren, had waited for Romy after school. He raped her several times and then killed her when she said she would report him to the police, he said in court.
On 24 November 2017, the court sentenced N. to one year in prison and juvenile institutionalized treatment, called a PIJ measure.
Since then, Romy’s parents attended each and every extension hearing for N.’s treatment. To represent their daughter and to show the court the consequences of her brutal murder. “It is incredibly difficult to always be at the hearings. You rake it up again every time. Fortunately, we were always given the opportunity to use our right to speak,” Romy’s father Jeroen Nieuwburg told the newspaper.
Nieuwburg hopes the court of appeals will turn N.’s PIJ measure into TBS - the court imposed treatment for adults. The independent psychiatrist and psychologist who recently examined him concluded there was a reasonable chance of recidivism. N. has ADHD, autism, and a borderline disorder with anti-social traits. His lawyer is arguing that a chance is not a guarantee and that N. should be given a chance.
“We thought it was very bad that he got this sentence because of his age,” Nieuwburg told AD about the original sentence. “If he had been an adult, he would have been sentenced to years in prison. Then we would have had a few years of peace at least.”
