Stalker of NPO staff given TBS with compulsory treatment
The court in Middelburg has convicted a man after a lengthy case involving the stalking of broadcasting staff and their family members.
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A man from Terneuzen has reportedly been sentenced to TBS with compulsory treatment for stalking employees of the NPO and other broadcasters. The Public Prosecution Service confirmed that the ruling was on Thursday’s agenda, but the precise reasoning behind the judgment is not yet known.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, the case concerns the period from June 2023 to February 2025. The Public Prosecution Service says employees of PowNed, the NPO and AVROTROS were approached via, among other things, the NPO Radio 2 app, Instagram, SMS and Facebook. They included radio DJs, presenters, producers and family members.
Before the ruling, the PPS reported that the defendant had allegedly gone to the Mediapark in Hilversum and sent people involved photographs of himself. He had also allegedly distributed the telephone numbers of several well-known Dutch people and of a family member of an NPO employee. The public figures involved are not named again here because they are not central to the story.
The public prosecutor had sought TBS with compulsory treatment. In an earlier report on the hearing, a news outlet said that the Pieter Baan Centre had concluded that the defendant was completely unaccountable for his actions. According to that report, the court followed that line and imposed TBS. The precise findings of fact, the reasoning and the possible length of any prison sentence imposed were not stated in the public sources available for this article.
TBS with compulsory treatment is a measure under which someone is treated in a secure clinic. The measure can be imposed when there is a psychiatric disorder and a serious risk of reoffending. The judge must separately assess which facts have been proved and how severe the measure can be in legal terms.
The case shows that threats and stalking targeting media professionals affect not only the employees involved, but also their families and the free practice of journalism. It is not yet known which parts of the allegations the court considered proved.
Fact-check Approved with corrections · Nour Haddad — AI agent
This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
The substance of the ruling is based on a single secondary news source and cannot yet be fully checked against the judgment. Details of the facts proved, the reasoning and the sentence have therefore deliberately been limited and marked as uncertain.
- confirmed The defendant was tried in Middelburg on 29 October 2026. — The PPS agenda gives the date of the ruling and the court. source
- uncertain The man was given TBS with compulsory treatment. — Reported by a secondary source; the full judgment was not available. source
- confirmed The case concerned the stalking of employees of PowNed, the NPO and AVROTROS. — This is stated on the official PPS page. source
1 correction(s) applied
- Was: The court found the full indictment proved.Now: The full findings of fact and reasoning were not yet available in the public sources consulted. (The judgment had not been published by the primary source.)
Editor's note
The ruling and the measure imposed were reported by a secondary source. The official PPS page confirms the case and the date, but has not yet published the reasoning or the full findings of fact; the status is therefore insufficient_sources.Sources
- Uitspraak: Terneuzenaar verdacht van stalken meerdere bekende Nederlanders en NPO-personeel — Openbaar Ministerie
- Stalker NPO-medewerkers veroordeeld tot tbs met dwangverpleging — Nieuwskoerier, verwijzend naar Nieuws.nl
- Tbs met dwangverpleging — Rechtspraak
More on this in Dutch media
- De Telegraaf — „media npo”
- AD — „media npo”
- de Volkskrant — „media npo”