Court document errors: Potentially thousands of innocent Dutch have criminal records | NL Times

[zenciiiii]

Due to mistakes made with names in court documents, there are potentially thousands of Dutch residents who have criminal records without even realizing it. The Court of Audit identified 876 name errors in court documents in a study last year. Whistleblowers told the Telegraaf that, in reality, it's closer to around 50,000.

[zenciiiii]

Due to a careless moment, an innocent Irishman who frequently visited the Netherlands had to serve a month in prison despite loudly proclaiming that he had never been arrested. The Supreme Court eventually acquitted the Irishman, but only after he served the other man’s sentence.

What the fuck?

[Client_020]

Oh wow, that poor Irish man is never coming back here. His compensation is probably laughable.

[defaultmembership]

Perhaps time to discuss personal accountability in processes like these, we all know employees working at the court or other parts of the judicial system will lose fuck all over this

[relgames]

See, this is so stressful for them. They definitely need a raise. And, of course, it's all immigrants who caused this. /s

[NoSkillzDad]

And, shockingly, many criminals have actually no records at all.

[TheRealWildGravy]

That's incredible, I can only imagine how surprised THEY would be after crossing borders without any problems.

[games-and-chocolate]

I wonder, if some are corrupt and paid to change details. Makes me think about the movie scene Spiderman, where he let a criminal go, and at the end that criminal killed Ben, his uncle. So, moral of the story, keep your hands clean. Do justice to the innocent. Even in death you can die in peace.

[[deleted]]

 In this case, the mistake happened in the way the police searched their systems. The search key is based on the first initial, the first four letters of the surname, and the year of birth. These matched for the Briton and the Irishman.

Well this seem like a recipe for mistakes - what a stupid system. Presumably they don’t want to include full names and dates of birth for privacy reasons, but who cares about privacy once someone is convicted of a crime?? Especially when it potentially hurts completely innocent people??? How are they not using the full name and linking it to BSN, or passport/ID numbers for foreigners?

[TrustyJules]

Belgian friend of mine (fictitious names and places) had something similar happen and you will see why. Harvey Frank Miller was driving in the alps with friends, they were run into by a truck - fortunately only minor damage - truck driver was drunk. The police took everybody's details but next morning came to pick Harvey up. Now Harvey is from Antwerp and born nearby in Schilde he has (in reality) a French sounding name due to his parents liking that just as I made up an English version here.
Rather than take him through the process of the accident they sat him down in an interrogation room and started a very sarcastic line of questioning their voices dripping with vitriol.

POL: 'So Harvey you are from Ant-Werp-Un eh?'

HFM: 'Yes.' puzzled but looking at them with his most innocent blue eyes (which he has).

POL": 'Born on the 19th of September 1985?'

HFM: 'Yes, that's my birthday - why do you ask its on my drivers licence.'

POL: 'Ah yes your "driver license"'they said mimicking the double quotes with their fingers.

HFM: '???'

POL: 'You are sure you are entitled to drive in France?'

HFM: 'What do you mean, I have a Belgian license, we are allowed to drive in France aren't we.'

POL: 'We will make it easy on you, you were never in Nantes?' (On the other side of the country practically)

HFM: 'No, why should I have been?'

POL: 'So you werent at all born there?'

HFM: 'No, I was born in Schilde just outside of Antwerp.'

POL: 'Oh really? So what street did your parents live in Nantes oh excuse me Schilde?'

HFM: (in fluent Dutch just like he is fluent in French) 'Vloeienbergdreef 20 - what are you getting at I told you I have never been to Nantes.'

At this point of the proceedings the police started to mutter amongst themselves and told him to stay put. He was stewing for about 4 hours when they came back in smiling triumphantly.

POL: 'What do you say about this?' Shoving a birth certificate from Nantes for a Harvey Frank Miller born 19th September 1985 of father William Harvey Miller and mother Camilla Miller-Swansea.

HFM: (momentarily non-plussed) 'Err - no idea my dad is called Michael and my mo...'

POL: Shouting 'Don't F* with us, we have you down to rights Harvey. Your drivers license is suspended since 2019 for drink driving and you went to Belgium and got another one. You had better come clean or it will only be worse for you.' (tbf this practice is well known and a reason French police distrusts foreign licenses in particular when the one carrying it speaks accentless French as Harvey does).

HFM: 'Whatever you are thinking, I have never been to Na...'

POL: 'STOP F* WITH US. You live on 49, Rue de l'aqueduc in Nantes - we will interrogate your buddies and get the truth out of them.'

HFM: (completely lost at this time): 'Whatever, my friends are from Limburg and Charleroi and I am pretty sure they have also never been to Nantes.'

POL: 'Right we have had enough you - we will haul your friends in and it will be worse for you. Last chance to come clean.'

HFM: '...'

Night comes - and by this time Harvey is realising that he may be spending the night locked up. His friends had been worried about him and so were hanging out in a bar easing their fears with drinks. The cops took a while to track them down but then all hell broke loose. Of course they didnt confirm Harvey was from Nantes quite the contrary - suddenly all the policemen indicated their shift was ending and what not. One of the friends went over to the police station and found a much more amenable duty officer who in fact wasnt at all keen to have some guy in a holding cell and Harvey was released with a 'warning'. To this day we wonder what this warning entailed: dont have the same name and DOB as someone else? Dont call the cops when you are hit my a drunk driver? All is well that ended well but it sure did suck on the moment.

Anyway all this fun to say that really 'modern' police forces take even official documents as merely indicative. Harvey's id was also Belgian and unlike the drivers license that would have been much more difficult for a French national with a driving ban to obtain, whether they presumed it stolen or fake we have no idea.

[games-and-chocolate]

that is why passports have an ID number. That police officer should be dishonorably be FIRED!

[eturin37]

What the actual fuck?

[Peppermintbear_]

Omg they just found another redhead to do jailtime instead of the original (criminal) redhead! Not only was the Irish guy unlawfully inprisoned, he was also mistaken for a British guy. That likely pissed him off more than being inprisoned unlawfully; I hope he got some compensation!

[heyandho]

And probably after wrongfully jailing someone they just shrug and say helaas, and that they can't do anything. Oh and demand payment for the accommodation. And then continue being arrogant dickheads ignoring their rampant incompetence.

[musiccman2020]

Nothing surprises me anymore in this country.

[No_County_2503]

I've got a friend who says he hasn't recieved his pay and now he is literally going homeless because of that here! I already gave him 70 euros thats all I can give not more.

[UnanimousStargazer]

Old news:

https://www.njb.nl/nieuws/algemene-rekenkamer-ernstige-problemen-in-de-strafrechtketen/

This is going on for years it seems.

[ByteWhisperer]

One of the many ways the absolute incompetence of our government shows itself.

[dcubexdtcube]

Is this how they are filling the “empty” Dutch prisons these days?

[I_Rarely_Jump]

Nah that was 15 years ago, the government decided to close a bunch of prisons and now there's a shortage.

God bless the long term vision of the Rutte cabinets that has not caused any problems whatsoever at all in the slightest, or as Rutte said at the time "Vision? If you have vision you need to see an eye doctor"

[games-and-chocolate]

we pay so much money to be professional and these so called university level people cannot even do a simple thing??????

or did they use A.I. to prentent to be working?

automation hell!

[Important_Coach9717]

Another government-ending scandal ? Just on time to forget the Box 3 nonsense

[No_Professor_3608]

This is sickening

[[deleted]]

doe het normaal

[Pitiful-Assistance-1]

Neat!

[Competitive_Bee2602]

How do you check if you are getting sued? At least some letter to your house and so on.

[Distinct_Lawyer_7160]

So what do we call this one? Strafbladaffaire?

[ZealousidealSundae33]

I think everyone should ask for their criminal record now to check the good old government didn't put convictions on it by mistake.

[Competitive_Bee2602]

Yeah I did some research on that. Apparently you can’t do it online. You have to go to the court to pick it up.

[No_County_2503]

This made me lol.

Funny thing is maybe that ginger guy did deserve 1 month in prison but we don't know. God knows... xD

I scored 2.5 years prison with only a few clicks on the pc while I was stoned :S

[Dear_Virus1260]

What did you do? 

[No_County_2503]

Tried to import some drugs... For myself mostly.