“I’ve had the feeling all day that I don’t understand something. Or that there is something that I have not read,” Nathan ‘Acid’ Vandergunst (24) begins his new video entitled Pedo’s do not get punished in Belgium. “It’s so fucked that you can get a lesser punishment for raping two underage boys than for a video in which you expose Reuzegommers.”
He is referring to actor and influencer Nicolas Caeyers (31). He was sentenced on Tuesday by the criminal court in Leuven to a deferred prison sentence of one year for the rape of two underage teenagers and the sexual assault of a third. The victims were 15 years old and 13 years old at the time of the facts, Caeyers was 23 years old at the time. The twenty-something had already gained a lot of fame through roles in series such as Wittekerke and Galaxy Park and, according to the court, used his “name and fame to arouse curiosity among teenagers who were still looking for their own sexuality.”
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YouTuber Acid does not understand why Caeyer does not have to go to jail because of the ruling. “I have goosebumps,” he says. “There is only one thing that drives me crazier than sexual abuse and that is child sexual abuse. What does that punishment mean? Nothing. This is insane,” he continues.
In his video, Acid also shows an older fragment from a livestream of TagMag, an internet platform for young people. It is about a dating show that an underage boy is said to have registered for. Caeyers responds: “You don’t feel that difference (in age, ed.).” Acid points out to its viewers that the atmosphere in the video changes and that Caeyers’ interlocutors feel uncomfortable and try to change the subject. “I can tell from their reaction that they are panicking,” he says. Acid also raises the concern that Caeyers’ colleagues at TagMag may have been aware of the facts. “And they now think: we all know he is a pedo and now he is coming out about it.” The timing and context of the video and the statements made in it are not immediately clear.
Compensation
Caeyers must also pay compensation of 7,500 euros per person to the two victims who filed civil proceedings. “I’m so curious about what will be said to me. I’m going to get a lot more than this,” says Acid. “I’m going to get a much harsher sentence than someone who raped two underage boys. Insane. They ask me for 200,000 euros in moral damages. On February 22 we will know whether I will be punished more severely than a rapist.”
READ ALSO. How ‘Circus Acid’ became very bitter in court: “I would crawl underground to demand 200,000 euros”
As a reminder: in the aftermath of the Reuzegom trial, Acid distributed a video in which he explicitly mentioned four Reuzegommers by name. One of the four, a former president of the student club, sued him because Acid had wrongly mentioned him in the video. Acid must answer for, among other things, harassment, privacy violations, electronic nuisance and slander: he risks up to two years in prison and a heavy fine. The parents are also asking for 200,000 euros in compensation.
Acid ends his latest video with an appeal to anyone who may have ever been a victim of abuse. “Don’t let this and everything that happened here make you think that you won’t be punished. That it doesn’t matter whether you sue them or not. Someone will always want to listen to your story. Never keep it just to yourself because you think nothing will happen.”