“Normally I never take my girlfriend with me,” says Timothy after a short night. The couple just came out of the hospital last night, where his girlfriend had been treated for a minor injury after a fall on the bicycle. On the way home, the press photographer saw that there was a report of a car fire. “I thought: I’m going to take some quick pictures there.”
First he took a picture of a fire truck. “I got out and saw four people coming off a yard there. I was immediately threatened in a way that felt uncomfortable. I am often threatened, but this felt very real.”
So real, that the press photographer got back in the car and called 112 to say that his freedom of the press was obstructed. Meanwhile he saw two men running away. A moment later he saw two bright lights approaching him. They belonged to a shovel that pushed the car backwards. “In my passenger mirror I can see that we are almost going into the ditch.”
‘We were terrified’
The car is parked there. The shovel drives away, but then the four people reappear with “some kind of yellow stick-like objects.” According to the photographer, the car was hit several times with this.
During the telephone interview with the NOS, Timothy takes some painkillers. “I have pain all over. I have glass scrapes in my back.”
After popping the sticks, Timothy sees someone running away to the shovel. He hears the accelerator and feels that the car is rammed. Before he knows it, his car with him and his girlfriend in it is upside down in a ditch. “We were terrified. I felt panic and aggression. What should I do if those guys come up to us now?” He saw a person approaching the car. “I thought: what now?” “Then he saw it was a firefighter. “Then a burden falls off you.” The fire brigade cut the set from the car. They have been treated by ambulance personnel. Then they filed a report.
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