A domestic cleaner from the Flemish Brabant village of Gooik has been sentenced to 50 months’ imprisonment for stealing items from her customers’ homes and sick notes from a GP’s surgery. She used the sick notes to get her trial postponed.
Half of the 50-month sentence is suspended. The woman already had 4 previous convictions for theft. In 2020 she was sentenced to 12 months after she was found guilty of stealing from a school where she had been working as well as from the nephew of a family whose home she cleaned.
Later she received a 10-month sentence for stealing from a house and in October 2022 she was sentenced in her absence to 30 months after having been found guilty on several counts of theft from the homes of people that had employed her as a cleaner.
Falsified doctor’s notes
The woman lodged an appeal against her conviction but ensured that her appeal was postponed for many months by presenting the court with a string of sick notes that claimed that she was seriously ill.
The Halle-Vilvoorde prosecutor’s office became suspicious and launched an investigation. It soon became clear that the sick notes were falsified. The woman had stolen a notebooks and booklets containing sick notes from a doctor’s surgery where she cleaned. In addition to this it emerged that she had once again stolen from other customers too.
He attempts to postpone here previous trial and the theft of the sick notes from the GP were taken into account by the court when passing sentence. The court also ruled that the woman should receive treatment for her behavioural issues.