The Public Prosecution Service determines the punishment for four Groningen care farm employees itself

NOS News•today, 1:53 PM

Four employees of a care farm in Wedde, Groningen, have been ordered by the Public Prosecution Service to appear for a hearing where a possible punishment will be determined. Their cases are submitted to the public prosecutor and not to the court. A date has not been announced.

The public prosecutor can deal with minor criminal offenses himself. Then the case will not go to trial, but the Public Prosecution Service itself will decide on the sentence if it is established that a suspect is guilty.

On the farm, residents with severe multiple disabilities were abused by the employees. The healthcare institution closed in December 2022.

The cases against five other employees of an Aurora Borealis care farm in Groningen have been dismissed by the Public Prosecution Service, the Public Prosecution Service reports today.

The Public Prosecution Service says that four of the five employees whose cases have been dismissed have been proven to have been guilty of assaulting one or more residents of the care farm. But their share in the abuses in the care farm in the village of Wedde was so small that prosecution is not appropriate, according to the Public Prosecution Service.

The fifth employee does not have to appear in court because her reports as a whistleblower to Alberto Stegeman and the police made it possible to put an end to the abuses.

The four other employees who were called for a hearing by the Public Prosecution Service were all still working at Aurora Borealis when the police and Public Prosecution Service intervened in Wedde on December 19. According to the Public Prosecution Service, they have all been guilty of serious misconduct against the residents over a long period of time.

The two main suspects in the case will be tried in the Groningen court on June 10 and 12. They are charged with the premeditated assault of the ten residents of the care farm.

The case came to light after investigative journalist Alberto Stegeman recorded it with a hidden camera in October 2022. It was only in December that the inspectorate actually intervened.

In February 2023, a report from the Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate (IGJ) was published about the abuses in the care farm. There were examples of serious humiliations suffered by residents. For example, one client was put in a ditch and another was pushed with his head into the toilet.

Aurora Borealis was not an official healthcare institution, but a location where care was provided on the basis of the personal budget (pgb). This also resulted in less insight into the quality of care.