Earlier this month, three bartenders who were employed at Twister on the Poelestraat were acquitted of charges of raping a woman. The Public Prosecutor has announced that they are appealing the ruling.
Translation by Traci White
Dagblad van het Noorden reports that the three men, aged 24, 27 and 29, were cleared of charges on the 12thof October. The Public Prosecution had called for the men, who were employed at Twister at the time, to receive six month suspended jail sentences and 240 hours of community service.
The judge presiding over the case determined based on security camera footage that the woman did not appear outwardly drunk or unsteady on her feet. Now, the Public Prosecution has announced that they are going to appeal the sentence in district court in Leeuwarden. The case will be re-evaluated at some point in 2019.
The incident in question occurred in 2016. The three men, one of whom reportedly still works at the bar, had sex with a woman who had been drinking there that night. The woman said that she was so inebriated – she was also on drugs at the time – that she was not able to consent to having sex.
The three men, all of whom are in their 20s, said that the woman had made it clear to them that she wanted to have sex. The three men and the woman engaged in sexual activities in the warehouse of the bar. Sikkom reports that immediately after the incident, the woman sent a message to a friend saying that she had been raped by three men.
