trade union ACPOne of the women who has accused former ACP chairman Gerrit van de Kamp of sexually transgressive behavior has been actively involved in the course of the investigation. It concerns the current female director of the police union, according to a report by an external committee, in the hands of this site. Professor of Public Administration Michiel de Vries argues that the independence of the research is at stake.
During the investigation into alleged misconduct by Van de Kamp several people have made major (estimation) errors, confirms the committee of inquiry. This has led to a fractured police union, with many individuals damaged beyond repair. “There is a lot of repair work to be done,” reads the internal report. “We have seen the intense personal suffering this crisis has brought. The situation that has arisen is still very high for many people.’
‘This is very messy’
Police union ACP – with 23,000 members the second largest police union in the Netherlands – is slowly recovering after a restless year, in which ex-chairman Gerrit van de Kamp, the figurehead of the union for 18 years, had to resign due to allegations of sexual misconduct. During the investigation much criticism internally. According to former directors, the current (female) director was one of the alleged victims to have interfered internally with the process. “This indicates a preconceived plan,” says former director Chris Uiterwijk Winkel.
An external committee, led by former ProRail director Pier Eringa, confirms these signals after discussions with 15 people involved. After her own complaint, the female director appears to have actively participated in consultations about measures and communication around Van de Kamp. She would have exerted a lot of pressure to ‘act now’, according to those involved. She also passed confidential advisors and called on colleagues to come forward with stories. With this she deliberately deviated from the protocol, is the criticism. ‘This is very sloppy and could perhaps be called bad,’ the committee judges.
Powerless
Van de Kamp felt powerless during the investigation – he said an interview with this site – because he didn’t know what he was accused of. The committee blames the union for this. ‘What this case shows is that you have to be extremely careful with anonymous reports. The fact that the content of the reports was not known for a long time didn’t help either.’ Van de Kamp had to temporarily resign his position on the basis of two anonymous reports. That should have been done differently, the committee believes.
The former board of directors also gets a beating, because they did not come to the fore sufficiently. ‘To what extent should the board have kept the director and fellow director far away from a case involving the chairman?’, the committee wonders aloud. The timeline shows that in a time of crisis, the association’s board fell apart in a short space of time, plunging the association into deeper chaos. “Whatever the individual consideration may be, this has left the remaining directors with even more responsibilities,” it sounds.
“Why Bleed Chairman?”
Over the months, various camps arose within the ACP, the committee also sees. The investigation by company detective Hoffmann into Van de Kamp’s behavior did not lead to a rapprochement between these camps, but rather to a further split. ‘There is a group that agrees with the results of this and another group experiences injustice, because the arrows have focused too one-sidedly on Mr Van der Kamp.’ Since then there would have been an atmosphere at the union of ‘why did the chairman have to bleed and will the director get away with it?’ For the Committee, incidentally, it is impossible to determine whether the outcome (Van de Kamp’s departure) would have been different if administrative ‘the lines had been followed more clearly’.
Professor of Public Administration Michiel de Vries, who often conducts research into integrity issues and is working on a book about it, suspects that this is an abuse of power. “From what I hear and read, influence has been exerted in a bad, careless way on a matter that is very sensitive. This puts the defendant sidelined without being able to defend himself. A bad thing.”
The female director of the ACP has been home sick for some time and is therefore unavailable for comment. The ACP and Van de Kamp’s lawyer do not want to respond to the report. This site also tried to get in touch with the other two alleged victims, but so far has been unsuccessful.
Watch our news videos in the playlist below:
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and don’t miss a thing of the stars.
