Dutch volleyball player who raped 12 year old British girl qualifies for Olympics

A handful of some of the supportive comments I read last night (Google page translated). They should probably have their internet history checked, I will never understand people who choose to die on the hill of paedo rapist defending.

There was an upsetting survey posted on here a few months ago that showed a surprising number of men would be sexually interested in a 12 year old if they thought they could get away with it.

Thank you for quoting this whole paragraph, @ArabellaScott . The use of the grossly euphemistic, anachronistic and sexist taken her virginity is beyond enraging.

As for the “sex monster” (his own defence lawyer called him this at his trial in 2016) denying that he’s a paedophile, being released three years early AND going on to represent Holland at the Olympics: rage at the blatant contempt he, the judicial system and the IOC have shown towards the 12-year-old girl. That poor child.

I also read that child abuse in magazines is legal in the Netherlands due to a loophole in the law.

The place sounds like a cesspit.

They can but the only the IOC can overrule a national association. I hate to say it but I think it’ll be of little good. He’s been in professional sports since 2018 and has multiple partners who haven’t cared. He’s won a lot and with the Olympic medals at stake, the Dutch will do as the Dutch do… turn a blind eye.

You can try the IOC
olympics.com/ioc/faq/ioc-organisation/how-can-i-contact-the-ioc-or-an-ioc-member

Just horrible.

(given it was a UK citizen. I don't personally think it makes any difference to how bad it was - I would be just a shocked if he had rapes a Dutch child. But the fact it was a UK child should make it the uks business).

I wonder if it's also worth emailing the UK Olympic committee about this? There must be some sort of formal/informal objection they can raise?

Yeah... the whole red light district thing is seen as progressive by many but when you wander round there some of the girls in the windows are clearly underage and probably trafficked. There's a couple of streets where it's all Eastern European or African girls and many are so obviously too young. I found it grim honestly

Yes 16.

Agree. And agree with PP who asked how are they going to ensure safety in the athletes village? Shameful

Do they have an age of consent?

I just Googled "Netherlands Rape law". Apparently Sex without Consent will be legally recognised as Rape in the Netherlands from next month.

As I already posted earlier today Holland has the highest rate of child sexual abuse porn in the EU.

I read that in Google translate:

sex with a minor, which is 'rape' under English law and 'indecent' under Dutch law.

After a year he was extradited, the sentence was adjusted to Dutch standards and he was released.

So in Holland sex with a minor is it rape just indecent. And though English standards for sentencing are pretty low, when adjusted to Dutch ones they more or less vanish altogether.

WTAF is the place run by paedophiles?! Children can't give consent to sex. She was 12 FFS! The argument that she could have given consent to someone her own age is child abusing nonsense.

It is less of a crime. The whole argument for that is that its because children of the same age shouldn't be criminalised blah blah blah. But as you can see, not only does the law allow grown adults to get away with lesser sentences but it also allows the media to massively downplay what happened/the severity of the crime. They also completely fail to mention that he premeditated the whole thing AND gave her lots of alcohol to make her drunk so he could have sex with her repeatedly. Its almost implying she came on to him, or leaves it open to that interpretation.

There has been continual advocating for the lowering of boundaries on consent etc. The argument for the existence of political parties advocating for paedophiles etc was always "we know its wrong, but we tolerate the right to say it" sort of thing. But clearly vast swathes of the Dutch establishment don't really think its wrong at all.

I don't understand. The article says:

Van de Velde, now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in England in 2016 for having sex with a minor, which is 'rape' under English law and 'indecent' under Dutch law.

Sex with kids isn't rape in the Netherlands? It seems to be a much lesser crime, because the article says that the reason he got out so quickly was because his sentence was reduced according to Dutch law.

Oh god this is horrific. Sport is clearly more important than girls..

Some of the comments on that are awful.

It is being reported in the Dutch media now, but very much in the lines of "foreign media being mean about our guy." Volleyball federation stands behind Olympian Van de Velde after foreign fuss about sex case | Olympic Games | NU.nl To be fair, that automatic translate of the word fuss isn't quitr right. But the whole article MASSIVELY downplays it. I am actually genuinely disgusted - I would like to think that if a UK sports hero raped a 12 year old girl in another country we/the media wouldn't downplay it to the same extent. Maybe I'm wrong,

Also this quote (translated from Dutch)
Van de Velde told his story in the AD in 2017.He took the blame "in everything." Van de Velde, who was nineteen years old at the time, had come into contact with the twelve-year-old girl online. "We both had our problems, which was an attraction," he said. "But this should never have happened. Never, never, never."

Her "problem" is that she was a 12 year old girl groomed by a monster. His "problem" is that he is a fucking nonce.

In my searching around about beach volleyball on various sports related websites I've found these and am posting the links in case they are of use.

The IOC has a webpage listing minimum ages for athletes. These ages are apparently set by each participating country. GB (and many other countries) are 13+. France is 15+. The Netherlands is 16+. How would France and the Netherlands plan on supervising a known sex offender who might be around such young athletes? Would the managers of other country's teams with under-age competitors be told about him (or any others, he might not be the only one)? Presumably all of the athletes will have access to shared spaces within the athletes' village eg. training and catering facilities.
https://olympics.com/en/age-consent

In sports that I'm more familiar with, UK teams have nominated welfare officers and supervision should be high, although it still has the potential to fail. It may not be like that for other countries, even ones that look fine on the surface, eg. Nassar et al being 'hidden' in US gymnastics.

The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) seems to be the regulatory body responsible for all forms of volleyball worldwide. They maintain a database of the results of all relevant international competitions and it's possible to search it for individual players. This is Steven Van de Velde's page: https://www.fivb.com/players/players-database/player/138207
It shows that he was competing regularly on the international stage up to 28th Aug 2015, then there was a gap until May 13th 2017 when he resumed. He's then competed regularly ever since, including at European and World Championships.

Why hasn't there been any publicity about him in the sports' world before now?

RiverF · Today 18:04

“biscuitandcake · Today 17:34
Don't shut up! I do think I know exactly what you mean about how the Netherlands is perceived versus its reality.”

Isn't the Netherlands perceived as Liberal, precisely because of its history of exploiting women?

That’s a very good way of looking at their so called liberal approach. They think they are progressive because they’ve removed barriers to doing this.