Quick update from the frontlines of judicial excellence. As expected, nurse Lucia de Berk was cleared of all murder charges by the court of Arnhem on 14 April last week. The case has been extensively covered in the Dutch media, with some frank editorials, most of which are sadly hiding behind a paywall. The Haga Hospital, which owns the Juliana Children’s Hospital where Lucia worked at the time of her arrest, will pay her 45,000 euro in compensation for wrongfully firing her. While that’s a decent amount of money, given that the hospital’s own apparently shabby internal investigation led to her arrest in the first place, I think it’s a pretty measly gesture. The hospital’s own statement is very brief and terse.
Everyone’s been falling over each other to apologise to Lucia for this awful miscarriage of justice – Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Harm Brouwer, Chairman of the Public Prosecution – and apparently negotiations on what compensation she will receive from the government are ongoing.
As usual the best coverage comes from GeenStijl, the Netherlands’ answer to The Onion, who report that Lucia has signed up to star in Kafka: The Musical. If you know Dutch, go read.
Here’s a short news report in Dutch from NOS:
Lucia appeared on Dutch talkshow Pauw & Witteman last week, here is an excerpt from YouTube where she and her lawyer talk about her conviction:
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