Ex-ballet director pays four-figure sum of money: case against Marco Goecke after fecal attack was dropped

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Criminal proceedings against the former ballet director of the Hannover State Opera, Marco Goecke (51), for an attack with dog feces on a journalist, have been stopped on a financial condition. A spokeswoman for the Hanover Public Prosecution Service confirmed on Thursday that Goecke had paid a mid-four-figure sum to an association that deals with mediation between victims and perpetrators and conflict resolution.

In February, Goecke confronted a critic from the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) in the foyer of a ballet premiere and smeared dog feces on her face during an argument. She has filed a complaint. Goecke was immediately suspended from the state opera in the capital of Lower Saxony, banned from the premises and ultimately dismissed.

Journalist criticized Goecke’s production

According to the spokeswoman, the Public Prosecution Service regarded the attack as a physical insult. The authorities justified the termination of the proceedings by saying that Goecke had not yet appeared in criminal proceedings, had shown insight into the injustice committed after the crime, had suffered significant economic losses and that his reputation had also suffered from the consequences of the incident .

The affected critic of the “FAZ”, Wiebke Hüster, was satisfied with the outcome of the procedure. “For me, everything is good as it is,” Hüster told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. The journalist therefore does not file civil proceedings in which she could have claimed damages.

The background to Goecke’s attack was a journalist’s criticism of one of his choreographies that had appeared a few days earlier. In the article, the critic called the production an “embarrassment and impertinence” and wrote that the audience would be “alternately mad and killed by boredom.” (AFP)

Source: Blick