{"id":10377,"date":"2023-07-12T11:37:27","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T09:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deintegriteitscoordinator.nl\/misconduct-at-the-voice-van-doorne-publishes-investigation-report\/"},"modified":"2023-07-12T11:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T09:47:53","slug":"misconduct-at-the-voice-van-doorne-publishes-investigation-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deintegriteitscoordinator.nl\/en\/misconduct-at-the-voice-van-doorne-publishes-investigation-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Misconduct at The Voice: Van Doorne publishes investigation report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than a year after BOOS aired about the serious misconduct at Dutch tv show The Voice, the investigation report has finally been published. The programme’s producer, ITV, has since apologised. There is much to criticise about the report, yet there is also plenty to learn from.<\/p>\n

Early last year, the BNN\/Vara programme BOOS revealed serious misconduct at The Voice of Holland<\/a> (Dutch language). ITV, the programme’s producer, then ordered an investigation into the allegations of abuse of power conducted by their attorney Van Doorne and called on victims to report to Van Doorne. This drew criticism towards both ITV and Van Doorne. After all, the attorney of the client is supposed to defend the position of its client; by definition, the attorney of the client should be biased and represent the client’s interests as best as possible. This is at odds with conducting independent investigations. The lawyer of some of the victims therefore urged not to talk to Van Doorne, but to submit a report to the authorities.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Amsterdam disciplinary court for the legal profession ruled in July 2022<\/a> (Dutch language) that lawyers are not allowed to conduct independent fact-finding investigations for the clients they represent. Nevertheless, ITV and Van Doorne continued the investigation. In the meantime, the Public Prosecution Service decided to investigate the case themselves and is now also prosecuting a number of The Voice employees for sexual abuse. Van Doorne subsequently agreed with the prosecutors and the police not to focus their investigation on possible criminal offences such as sexual assault and rape. The investigation was now specifically focused on inappropriate behaviour with a sexual element.<\/p>\n

A public summary of Van Doorne’s investigation report<\/a> (Dutch language) was published at the end of March 2023. Van Doorne spoke to 62 people. These interviews revealed that inappropriate behaviour had indeed occurred in an often uneven position of power. Some of those interviewed indicated that they did not feel safe to report. Moreover, victims did not know where to go to with their complaints and reports. Partly because of this, signals of misconduct did not reach ITV’s Management and HR departments. And if complaints were submitted, this was done informally and hardly anything was recorded in writing. Thus, some individuals seem to have been addressed informally about their behaviour (this was also evident from the broadcast of BOOS), but concrete action seemed to have failed to materialise.<\/p>\n

According to Van Doorne, there were no indications that the inappropriate behaviour investigated was explicitly reported as whistleblowing or otherwise designated as whistleblower reports. While that may be true, reports of inappropriate behaviour may actually qualify as whistleblower reports since February this year. For this to be the case, the wrongdoing must affect multiple individuals. Besides, the wrongdoing would have to consist of a pattern, endanger the safety of persons, violate concrete internal rules or endanger the proper functioning of the organisation. Surely that seems to be the case here.<\/p>\n

Experienced investigator Peter Schimmel slashed the report on LinkedIn<\/a> (Dutch language): “As for the past, there were no standards to judge the behaviour against, hardly any records and therefore this is a quicksand investigation”.<\/p>\n

In any case, the report’s findings were reason for ITV to apologize profusely. Director Lisa Perrin: “We apologise to anyone who experienced any form of inappropriate behaviour around the making of The Voice of Holland…. Had complaints of inappropriate behaviour been referred to ITV management in London, the response would have been different….we would like to apologise to the people who did the right thing by raising their concerns.”<\/p>\n

Peter Schimmel: “However, we are not told what the apologies are for. We have no idea why the real incidents were not investigated, using the excuse that criminal offences had to be left out of the investigation. How do you know what happened if you don’t investigate it? ….. It should cover all abuse of power, regardless of the means of the abuse.”<\/p>\n

Professor Rob van Eijbergen is also critical<\/a> (Dutch language), stating, “It’s a nitty-gritty piece of 17 sheets, which was awaited more than a year….it was announced beforehand as a careful investigation of the facts. It now appears that it was mainly a phishing expedition for the Voice’s owner, ITV, on the basis of which it can be argued that the employer was not aware of what was going on in the workplace…. not a word is devoted to the fact that employers in the Netherlands are required by the Labour Conditions Act to ensure the safety and health of their employees…” To us these comments seem to be justified. By the way, we do not always agree with Van Eijbergen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, the conclusion that the employer did not know there was abuse of power going on, obviously suits the commissioner of the investigation. This appearance of bias simply cannot be brushed away. Still, there is plenty to learn from the investigation and this case. For example:<\/p>\n