UGent professor Carl Devos announces legal steps after book about assault
© Kris van Exel
UGent professor Carl Devos announces legal steps on Monday because of the book of a former assistant that suggests cross-border behavior. His lawyer reports that.
In the book ‘Academic Coziness’ by Hilde van Lieferinge, reference is made to a « well -known professor » of Ghent University that is accused of assault. Van Liefferinge stepped fourteen years ago with her story to the ombudswoman and the rector, but she did not feel believed. Now she has written a detailed novel. According to the professional, there was « mutual permission ».
A name is not given in the book, but the detailed way in which the anonymous professor is described in the book ensures that every reader immediately knows who author Hilde van Liefferinge means and accuses. No attempt is made to keep him really anonymous, on the contrary. Moreover, the way in which he is placed after page is read – apart from the alleged abuse – as a long and little subtle character murder, where the professor is portrayed as « a dirty ass » and as a manipulative « sun god ».
Carl Devos now announces through his lawyer that he is taking legal action.
Read the full response of Carl Devos’s lawyer here
On Monday, March 24, 2025, an article appeared on the Humo website that damages the reputation of my client, Mr Carl Devos, in a far -reaching and unacceptable way. I want to respond to the conscious interview with author Hilde van Liefferinge, as well as the reporting that was followed. The article revolves around the publication of a novel by a former employee of my client.
A fiction book, in which the author – albeit without mentioning my client’s name – brings her story in such a way that readers can link his person to one of the characters. A character who commits itself to sexual cross -border behavior. Those ‘facts’ are presented to him as if they have occurred in reality. Literary fiction Maw as a journalistic source. My client tends heavily on this and denies this literary representation. The author never filed a complaint about this case 14 years ago. Then these allegations could have been treated on the basis of real and unstatulated evidence and facts, for an impartial judge, not through public opinion.
It is every author of a novel, a fiction book, of course free to come up with and write down anything. But the moment that fabrications are deliberately linked to a person of flesh and blood, intended to damage an important deontological limit. Such practices do not fit into a constitutional state. We are not willing to let these false accusations that are now being sent into the world through a literary detour. Because the truth indeed has its rights. The reporting also refers to various reports that would have been made against my client as a professor.
My client was not confronted with these reports at any time. He did not suffer any disciplinary sanction in his career. We take legal action against the book. This is a matter of Eerroof. We will have the debate where it belongs: in court. I thank you to give my client the necessary rest and to carry all communication about this case with me.
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