Junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff has told parliament that he will look into cancelling the residency permits of refugees who are convicted of sex crimes, in a further toughening up of the rules, RTL news says on Friday.

Dijkhoff has already agreed that asylum seekers who are given a jail sentence of six months or more will not be given residency. MPs now want him to take this further and withdraw permits from refugees who are guilty of sexual assault.

‘I consider that people who come here to be safe should be punished if they misbehave,’ the broadcaster quotes Dijkhoff as saying. ‘… and that must have consequences for your right to stay.’

However, lawyer Jan Kees van den Brink told the broadcaster the minister’s plan is absurd. He quoted the case of a client, who at the age of 18 touched the breasts and bottoms of two women while out on the town in Almere. He was later sentenced to 60 hours community service, 30 suspended.

The assault, in the wake of the Cologne attacks, led to a storm on social media.

‘This is damaging my faith in the justice system,’ Van den Brink said. ‘Politicians are being carried away by the social media debate.’

The teenager, who is technically head of his family since his father vanished in Sudan, was sentenced for a crime which ‘happens in every bar and in every school,’ he said. The other man involved, who is 21, was acquitted.