The Belgian judiciary works with a jury system. This means that twelve jury members, together with the judges, have considered the guilt and possible sentence of B.
They spent four hours today pondering three questions: Is Steve B. guilty of the death of Julie Van Espen? Is it premeditated, and therefore murder? Is he guilty of raping the 23-year-old woman? On all three questions the jury answered yes.
Steve B.
Steve B. is no stranger, he has a long criminal record. After minor offenses such as theft, threats and traffic offences, he committed his first serious offense in 2004. He raped a 58-year-old woman who had invited him into the house to give him some food. B. was sentenced to four years in prison and was released in 2008.
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In 2016, B. raped his ex-girlfriend. He turned himself in to the police a few days after the crime. He was held in pre-trial detention for a while, but was then released on conditions. At the end of June 2017, B. was sentenced to four years in prison, but he appealed.
And that’s where it went wrong: B. was allowed to await the appeal in freedom. The process took two years. Julie was murdered a few months before the trial began.
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The event shocked Belgium in 2019. Julie van Espen left her parental home in Schilde on Saturday evening, May 4, 2019. She was on her way to her friends, but she never got there.
The next day, Julie’s bloodied clothes were found in a meadow a few kilometers from Antwerp. The basket of her bicycle was found in a garbage can nearby. The police looked at camera images of the area and saw a man with a large backpack walking with the same bicycle basket in his hands. Two days later, 39-year-old Steve B. was arrested. In the afternoon, Julie’s body was found in the Albert Canal near Antwerp. Around the same time, B. confessed to killing her. Because she fought back when he raped her.
Tomorrow the punishment
B. has now been found guilty of this. A decision will be made on Wednesday which sentence the suspect will receive, according to Belgian media he risks life.
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