In the case of a Rotterdam police officer, which caused much controversy nationwide, the client of Caroline De Sitter and Linda van der Hut was acquitted in full yesterday by the District Court of The Hague.
The client was previously publicly and unequivocally condemned for drawing up an official report contrary to the truth. The District Court of The Hague rules differently. One of the passages is not incorrect and, among other things, based on the consistent statements of the police officer, their support in the file and the expert report of two legal psychologists brought in by the defense, according to the court, there is no question of intent to incorrectly verbalize two other passages, not even in a conditional sense.
A ruling of relevance to all police practice. Among other things, the court considered:
‘‘Experts describe that police officers are just as susceptible to memory errors as civilians and that like all other people, officers’ perceptions and memories are influenced by a variety of estimation variables such as expectancy effects, stress and social influence. (…) Legal psychological research shows that memories of (emotional) events can be very vivid and detailed, even if they turn out to be incorrect. With that, legal psychology does not provide support for the conclusion that the defendant deliberately made inaccurate statements in his police report, according to the experts.”
Read the full ruling here.
