Rapper and television presenter Ali B is in court on Tuesday to appeal against a two-year unconditional jail sentence for rape and sexual assault. The public prosecution office, which had called for a three-year sentence, also appealed against the original court verdict.

B, whose full name is Ali Bouali, was found guilty of one count of rape and one of sexual assault but cleared on other charges by judges in Haarlem in 2024 but was allowed to await the outcome of the appeal at home.

Bouali had been charged with assaulting three women between 2014 and 2018. The 42-year-old from Almere was the only one of four men at the centre of a “me too” scandal at television talent show The Voice of Holland to end up in court.

One woman, named as Naomi, claimed Bouali assaulted and raped her during a writers’ camp in Heiloo in August 2018, when she was 20. He was found guilty of that rape but not of assault.

In the second case, Bouali was charged with sexually assaulting Jill Helena, a participant in The Voice of Holland in 2013. Although her statements were extremely detailed and believable, the court said that it was compelled to find Bouali not guilty because of a lack of supporting evidence.

The third is an alleged rape of 47-year-old singer Ellen ten Damme, during the making of a television show in Morocco in April 2014. She went public with her allegations after the story first broke. Bouali was found not guilty of raping Ten Damme but was found guilty of sexually assaulting her.

The public prosecution office wants the judge to reconsider the ruling on the alleged assaults of Naomi and Jill Helena and the alleged rape of Ellen ten Damme and up the sentence to three years.

The rapper appealed because, he said, he is hoping to be exonerated of all crimes. His lawyer at the time said Ali B ” does accept no for an answer” and that he had been painted as “a sexual predator”. The performer claimed he had been the victim of a “trial by media”.

The case continues on Thursday and Monday.