Justice minister Stef Blok has asked ministry inspectors to look into the psychiatric clinic where Michael P, the man suspected of murdering Anne Faber, was being treated.

‘There are so many questions about the background to this case – about the suspect and the situation at the clinic in Den Dolder where he lived,’ Blok said.

P was convicted of two violent rapes in 2012 but was able to live in relative freedom at the clinic which is situated not far from where Anne was cycling on the Friday she vanished. He was arrested earlier this week in connection with the disappearance of 25-year-old Anne, whose body was found in a nature reserve on Thursday afternoon.

One woman, a mother of three girls, has set up an online petition calling for an inquiry into the ‘failures of the legal system in the case of Michael P.’ By 10.45 am it had been signed over 120,000 times.

‘We are calling on those who are responsible – the ministry of justice – to make a statement,’ the petition states.

Re-socialisation

P was jailed for 11 years in 2012 for the brutal rape of two teenage girls and for a string of robberies. He was allowed out of the clinic as part of a re-socialisation programme, the Telegraaf said.

P had not been sent to a psychiatric prison for treatment because he had refused to cooperate with a psychiatric assessment prior to his trial. Legislation making it possible to sentence convicted criminals to tbs – or psychiatric prison – even if they have not been properly assessed, is currently pending in the upper house of parliament.

According to the Telegraaf, police are now investigating a number of incidents which P may also have been involved with.

In one, which took place the weekend before Anne disappeared, a young woman was knocked off her bike and attacked by a man, who ran off when a car drove up. That incident took place in Nijkerk, the village where P attacked the two teenage girls in 2010, the Telegraaf said.