{"id":30642,"date":"2014-09-10T09:28:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T09:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelegalcompany.nl\/?p=30642"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:00:36","slug":"a-thieving-employees-confession-is-worth-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelegalcompany.nl\/en\/a-thieving-employees-confession-is-worth-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"A thieving employee’s confession is worth nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A confession of guilt can add a lot of value in making it plausible that an employee is underperforming<\/a> and can be dismissed. This ruling by the Amsterdam District Court, however, shows that you must be careful when obtaining a confession of guilt. If you follow the wrong steps, it can lose its evidentiary value. A colleague of a sales employee at Hema reported to her employer that her colleague was allegedly guilty of shoplifting. According to her colleague, she had given bags full of goods to various customers. As a result, Hema started an investigation into the employee without the employee’s knowledge. The camera footage confirmed that the employee gave away various goods to customers for free. Hema decided to confront the employee with the evidence in a meeting attended not only by the store manager but also by someone from HR and a corporate investigator. The employee stated that she had given away the goods because she was being threatened by these customers. During that meeting, Hema then presented the employee with a confession of guilt and had her sign it, which also stated the amount of damages, namely \u20ac115,000 (!). She was subsequently summarily dismissed. A few days later, the employee retracted her confession and invoked abuse of circumstances. She stated that she had had to sign the confession under excessive pressure and that the damages amount was far too high. She refused to pay the amount. Hema therefore took the employee to court and claimed \u20ac115,000. The court ruled in the employee’s favour with regard to the confession of guilt as well as the amount and the determination of the damages. The court found a number of things to be held against Hema:<\/span><\/p>\n