Please sign the petition at Change.org: We want justice for the victims of 3 crimes!
See our Facebook page Justice for Jansen
This is an overview of what happened (zie hier voor het Nederlands)
Three crimes were committed that are not being properly investigated or prosecuted:
- An overdose of medication was administered by a caregiver to make a severely handicapped person unconscious.
- The theft of a large amount of money when the victim was unconscious as a result of the overdose of medication.
- The poisoning of the victim’s dogs, causing one dog to die and the other dog to become sick.
We want justice for our friends and their dogs and demand that the case is thoroughly investigated and prosecuted:
- We want the police and the prosecution service to further investigate the caregiver who made written statements that they had administered a medication overdose and taken the money from the victim.
- We want the police and the prosecution service to investigate the poisoning of the dogs, which was probably done to retaliate against the victim and his family and to threaten them against taking further actions with the police.
- We want the police and prosecution service to consider all evidence that has been received and prosecute the caregiver in court.
- We want the caregiver to be banned from working with other handicapped people so that this does not happen again!
This is the very long story about what happened
Our friend Robert has severe disabilities, uses a wheelchair, and requires much care from his partner and caregivers. Our friend and his partner hired a caregiver in April 2013 to provide practical help with painting, opening and mixing paints, cleaning-up, etc., support for arts-related activities such as visits to workshops, and provide care as needed in an emergency. The caregiver signed a contract and was instructed in how to care for our friend.
An overdose of medication
On 12 September 2014 an overdose of medication was administered to our friend Robert by the caregiver. The caregiver wrote: “I gave him two sprays dormicum too much damnit” and “I gave him a little bit too much dormicum“. The caregiver should not have given any medication. Our friend had not given permission for the medication to be given, which they can prove in writing by the caregiver, and it was against all provided instructions.
His partner Ellyn had informed the caregiver of the use of the medication in advance, which there is written proof. On the day of the overdose, the caregiver claimed he understood the use of the medication and refused any further instruction. Panic was also no reason to give the medication, as was suggested by the police. The caregiver wrote: “But I was prepared for it. There was totally no panic or anything“. The caregiver’s fingerprints are also on the medication bottle that was given to the police as evidence.
His partner asked the caregiver to stay with our friend while she spoke with the ambulance crew. While she telephoned, the caregiver abandoned our unconscious and barely breathing friend to go to the bathroom! We think he went to the bathroom to hide money he had taken from our friend, because his partner never heard the toilet flush.
When his partner asked the caregiver how much of the medication he had given he was vague and said maybe triple the dose or possibly more, and became angry and ran away before the ambulance arrived. As a result of the overdose our friend had severe breathing problems. If his partner had not have given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, our friend would probably be dead.
The theft of a large amount of money
About four days later his partner Ellyn found out that the caregiver had taken our friend to the bank, and not where he said they were going, which was an art workshop. The caregiver helped our friend withdraw a large amount of cash. There are witnesses of this, and there is evidence in the bank transaction. The money was placed in a bank envelope and the caregiver put the envelope in the backpack that hangs behind the wheelchair of our friend. The money was the inheritance of our friend’s parents.
There is written evidence that the caregiver had knowledge about the money a few months previously. Based on available correspondence between the caregiver and our friend, we are convinced that the caregiver had persuaded our friend to withdraw the money in cash for safekeeping. The caregiver had convinced our friend to not inform his partner about their plan to withdraw the money or inform that it had happened. His partner had already had many trust issues with the caregiver, that others also witnessed, but the caregiver managed to work around his partner’s attempts to protect our friend.
The caregiver admitted in writing that he was in possession of the money: “I have put the envelope in my underpants and it is now safe with me” and also “I have immediately put it in my underpants it is here quietly waiting for you!“. When they tried to get the money back, the caregiver said that he had no money and was only in the possession of the bank envelope! The caregiver then accused others of stealing the money, especially our friend’s partner.
Our friend immediately reported the overdose and the theft of money to the police, but the police waited two months before arresting the caregiver. Not surprisingly, the money was not found in his possession after all that time. The caregiver then declared to the police that he did not understand how the medication should have been used, despite the fact that he was fully informed about it. Due to the fact that the police could not find the money the caregiver was released after three days, and the public prosecutor dismissed the case until further evidence is found.
The poisoning of the victim’s dogs
About ten days after the release of the caregiver by the police his partner Ellyn found one of their dogs with suspicious light blue bread roll in her mouth. A few days later on 1 December their other dog Jansen started to drip blood and his partner took him to the vet. The vet could not determine the cause and performed surgery, but unfortunately their dog died. Jansen was also a seizure assistance dog. Their other dog Jane also became sick, but mostly recovered a few weeks later after receiving an antidote for rat poison.
A few days later they found something that appeared to be rat poison in their garden, near the spot where his partner had found their dog with light blue bread roll. They informed the police, but the police did not want to file a report until they had proof that it was rat poison.
The police told them that they had to pay for the forensic testing to obtain the required evidence themselves. This is despite the fact that his partner had many times told the police that they were afraid of retaliation from the caregiver after what happened in September, because they had turned him into the police. After the case was dismissed by the public prosecutor they told the police that they were convinced that the caregiver had a clear motive and that we were being warned to not pursue the case with the police and the public prosecutor.
After many mistakes and delays caused by others, they received the results of the toxicological tests on 8 January 2015. The toxicological tests proved conclusively that their dog was indeed killed by rat poison and that the suspicious light blue bread roll that they had found was also rat poison. The costs of the forensic investigations were over €500, which they paid for themselves, because the police would not investigate.
Lack of action
Again they contacted the police, informing them of the toxicology test results. They also voiced serious concern for their safety and informed police of their own research into other illegal activities in which the caregiver may have been involved. Our friends have provided the police with what they expect as the minimum for further police investigation. The current status of the case with the police is as follows:
- Refusal by the police and prosecution service to consider all of the written evidence by the caregiver that they had given the overdose of medication and taken the money from our friend. Our friends have provided the written evidence to the police, but the police and prosecution service choose to ignore it.
- Refusal by the police to investigate new information, which has been provided by our friends. The police say that once the case is being handled by the prosecution service they will do no further investigation. This is despite the fact that the case was dismissed for lack of evidence, and the prosecution service said that in the future if new information becomes available that may be a reason to reopen the investigation. How can new information become available if the police will not investigate it!
- Refusal by the police to investigate the poisonings of the dogs. This is despite the police telling our friends that they needed to prove it was rat poison. Then having provided the evidence, still the police refused to take any action and our friends were told that they should investigate it themselves. The police said they had waited too long, despite records of the many contacts they made with police since rat poison was suspected on 3 December 2014.
- Refusal by the police to consider the strong circumstantial evidence and motive that the care provider probably poisoned the dogs to warn our friends against taking further actions with the police and prosecution service. This has made our friends feel very unsafe and the only action by the police was to tell our friends to install security cameras!
What we want
We believe the caregiver is a known con-man and is very dangerous and needs to be stopped! We find it incomprehensible and unacceptable that the public prosecutor has dismissed felonies such as violence against our friend in the form of administering an overdose of a dangerous medication along with the theft of his inheritance, which mostly likely caused another violent act by the caregiver in the form of poisoning of their dogs and killing one of them and making the other very sick.
We want justice for our friends and their dogs and demand that the dismissal of the case is canceled and that the case is thoroughly investigated and prosecuted. This would provide justice for our friends and their dogs and give the possibility for our friends to recover some of their loss (the €20,000 that was stolen and more than €1,300 in vet costs). This is also important so this does not happen to other handicapped people that may be in the care of this caregiver or other innocent animals.
We do not accept that a country like the Netherlands, that prides itself on justice, will not take action. Therefore we have begun a campaign to wake up the indifferent police and prosecution service. We hope that you will help by signing the petition that we will be sending to them!
Please sign the petition at Change.org: We want justice for the victims of 3 crimes!
