Lucia de Berk is (all but) acquitted today.
Over nine years ago Lucia was sentenced to life without parole for 3 murders & 7 attempted murders. Today she saw justice served for the first time.
Metta de Noo & her brother Ton Derksen have worked tirelessly during most of that period to bring this miscarriage of justice to the attention of whoever would listen.
Many others have given their time, expertise & energy to see this wrong righted.
On 14th April the judges will give their final verdict, a formality, the Public Prosecutor basically rolled-over today and admitted her innocence. They had no case to present and it was all wrapped up just after lunch.
Lucia is not required to be present on the 14th of April.
The last word in court was hers. She used that opportunity to thank all those who have worked on her behalf. You know who you are, I hereby pass on her gratitude to you all.
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kyoob says:
absolutely brilliant, sadly I don't venture the moblog corridors often, but it was great to see this.
there is hope for humankind.
hildegard says:
Gordon Bennet, that took some time. Will be nice when that (all but) is gone too. Hope she's coping ok.
Hope too that the case leads to some reforms. It was an eye-opener for me, NL has such a good international reputation, so it was staggering to find such a mess in the criminal justice system, & the complacency that protected & perpetuated the original errors was especially hard to understand.
JokerXL says:
"Phew, yay, Gordon Bennet and brilliant" indeed!
We are all very relieved that today went the way it did. The Public Prosecutor (PP) had been holding his cards close to his chest right up to the moment he stood up in court. We weren't sure how they would present their (non) case.
After some rather superficial and seemingly unnecessary initial questioning from the three judges on the bench the PP stood up and, basically, spent an hour and a half saying that they had no case left to prosecute. At the same time trying to shove the blame for the whole sorry affair onto anyone but their own office.
After lunch it was Lucia's defence lawyer, Stein Franken's turn. Most of his work had just been done for him by the PP but he didn't let that stop him from laying into the PP's office for their aggressive incompetence, the original court that convicted Lucia for their "tunnel-vision", the appeal court for their blind acceptance of vague rumours and of course the various, named, individuals from the original children's hospital for starting this whole witch-hunt in the first placed.
Not one individual can be made accountable for this travesty, it is a collective guilt. Those who have failed in this case, those who knew full-well that Lucia had done nothing wrong, those that said nothing, those that damned well lied! They know who they are, they know they should be ashamed, they probably aren't.
Izadora says:
Hello!
Was nice to see you again yesterday, sorry we couldn't spend more time talking... perhaps we will all go out for a drink to celebrate on the 14th :)
xx
JokerXL says:
I think you may find that you have another engagement around that time Izadora!
Was great to see you again, you're looking wonderful.
Yes, it would be nice to get together, all of us, when this has all settled down.
Javama says:
Great news! I hope Lucia will be OK. It will take some getting over.
Dhamaka says:
thank you to everyone
I hope that Izadora and Lucia are celebrating now
:)
Dhamaka says:
Javama - you may know that Lucia had a stroke when the justice system let her down, at the time of what should have been her first appeal. Because of this she'll never be able to completely put it behind her
JXL says:
I'm parked up outside a huge Tesco in Clevedon overnight, just going to pop inside and see what they have in the way of champagne.
x