Jelle Brandt Corstius will not be punished for defamation in his long-standing conflict with Gijs van Dam | Interior

Brandt Corstius wrote a piece in the daily newspaper during the global #MeToo debate in 2017 Fidelity in which he told how he was raped by a colleague in 2002 ‘at the start of his career’. He was allegedly drugged and forced to perform oral sex. Although he does not mention a name in the piece, TV producer Gijs van Dam thought he could be traced. The incident occurred when Brandt Corstius (as an intern) and Van Dam joined the program Barend and Van Dorp worked. That was not in Trouw, but Frits Barend announced later.

The judge does not think that Brandt Corstius – who was not present at the verdict – was guilty of libel with that story. Two later statements by Brandt Corstius are regarded by the court as ‘disgraceful’. These are statements in a press release that he issued in response to a message from the Public Prosecution Service and a statement in an interview in The Volkskrant. But the court classifies those statements as freedom of expression ‘in the context of the public debate’. In other words: the statements in themselves are libelous, but in the entire media battle between Brandt Corstius and Van Dam, the statements were again possible and Brandt Corstius is therefore not punishable.

The judge critically questioned Brandt Corstius last month about the exact intentions he had. Did he want to address the sexual abuse of men in general, or did he focus his arrows mainly on Gijs van Dam?

According to Brandt Corstius, it was mainly Van Dam himself who made himself known as ‘the suspect’. Van Dam entered the program at the time Peacock emerges as the man Brandt Corstius was referring to.

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The case caused quite a stir at the time. Van Dam bit off fiercely and denied the abuse. Brandt Corstius then filed a report against him, and Van Dam in turn filed a libel report. Van Dam also acknowledges having had sex with Brandt Corstius once, but states that this was entirely voluntary, in a drunken stupor. In the end, the court decided that the Public Prosecution Service should take Jelle Brandt Corstius to court.

Brandt Corstius said during the trial that he lost a lot of work due to the incident, while ‘his attacker’ did turn up in all kinds of great jobs. The whole incident became a huge media row and turned against him: ,,I never wanted it to turn out like this. My biggest fear is that there are now fewer people who dare to come forward with their story.”

With the (mild) sentence, the Public Prosecution Service already took into account the fact that Brandt Corstius suffered a lot from the whole affair.

Brandt Corstius never retracted the allegation against Van Dam. He did, however, propose to talk to Van Dam in order to finally conclude the whole affair.