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Sylviane Boulestaix: I went to go see him in January 2012. I was already retired at the time. I hadn't been to the dentist for a number of years, and since my previous dentist had retired, Van Nierop was the only one available in the area. During that first appointment, he immediately said he wanted to replace all my teeth. I was offered a price estimate, photos, everything. Right at the beginning of the consultation, he injected me with something—he said it was "to rebuild my teeth." It was very painful. When he made a mold of my teeth, it felt like he was trying to rip my jaw apart. But once you're in that chair, you're less inclined to ask any questions.
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No! It's a small village, and people are usually suspicious of strangers, but I didn't want to listen to what people where saying. And a former colleague of mine had had an appointment with Van Nierop, which had gone over well. His office looked perfectly normal: a waiting room with magazines and chairs set out along the walls. A receptionist in a white blouse who was neither particularly nice nor particularly rude, and an assistant to help him out. It all seemed functional and clean. He even had a nice bronze plaque with his name engraved on it. How are you supposed to suspect anything with all of that?
What happened after that first appointment?"He took out eight teeth at once and went out to have lunch with his assistant, leaving me to bleed all over the chair."
After two already very painful sessions, the receptionist called to tell me to come to the surgery so that the dentist could replace some of my teeth with dentures. Again, I trusted him, but it was horrific. He injected anesthesia in my gums eight times, so I couldn't feel or move three quarters of my face. I found it hard to breath. He then took out eight teeth at once and went out to have lunch with his assistant, leaving me to bleed all over the chair. When he got back, he tried to make a joke of it by asking: "Would you like a little sandwich, madame?" I was there for hours, and I kept bleeding for three days after the fact. And it left me in a vicious circle: I was in so much pain that I had to go back to see him. My gums were infected, so he took out the dentures to give them a chance to heal. After those appointments, the office suddenly closed.
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I found him quite nondescript. He was built like a rugby player and didn't have a great grasp of French, but enough to be understood. He was quite curt in his way of doing things, but, again, when you're lying back in a dentist chair with your mouth open, you don't really ask questions. His approach was brutal, but deep down you just think: He's a dentist. Dentists are rarely gentle and pleasant. And he did everything to put me at ease. He was pretty likable. It wasn't until he had his dentistry tools in his hands that he revealed himself to be a torturer.Do you think that he took some sort of pleasure in making his patients suffer?
No, I don't think so. In hindsight, I think that he was just there to make money off of honest people. You always had to pay forty percent of the cost of the treatment in advance. I didn't have enough money, so I had to borrow it—I'm still paying it back today.Have you seen a dentist since then?
I didn't have a choice, considering the state he left me in. For nearly a year and a half, I was toothless. I couldn't eat solid foods. I had always been completely trusting of doctors and medical treatments, but now it's more complicated. When I go to see a doctor now, I always have a knot in my stomach. We try to rebuild our lives as best as we can, but we'll never be able to forget. I'll be wearing dentures for the rest of my life because of him.Did you feel abandoned during everything that happened?
By medicine, yes. There aren't any family doctors in the French countryside anymore. It's completely deserted here. There's one doctor who comes around once every two weeks. I don't have a car and no internet. What am I supposed to do? Thankfully we were recognized as victims, and we'll receive compensation.What was being at the trial like?
I was shaking when I saw him. He didn't say anything. To every question that the prosecutor asked him, he replied: "I don't remember," or "I can't comment on that." He seemed completely disconnected from reality. I'm very happy it's over.