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

[NonCrimeHakeIncident]

https://uk.yahoo.com/sports/news/dutch-volleyball-player-raped-12-193257270.html

His lawyer at the time said “It’s plainly a career end for him”……..

Hockey in particular is an inherently violent sport where vicious fighting is part of the game. Yet people are surprised when hockey players turn out to be rapists.

I've had a look at their Safeguarding framework and it doesn't appear to seperate children or cater for them differently to other athletes.

I was thinking more along the lines of this:

A whole lot of athletes were harmed and let down shamefully by the despicable actions of people in power. It is a decades old dirty secret

I've had a look at their Safeguarding framework and it doesn't appear to seperate children or cater for them differently to other athletes.

That's pretty bad in this day and age all by itself really let alone when you have known convicted podophile rapists around.

Someone you know gets jailed for noncing. I take it you would be happy to socialise with him when he gets out, because 'he he served his sentence ' then?

I actually feel sick that this could be allowed.

To think he actually flew to another country to do this. It was all premeditated.

The Olympics are an official international organisation with a supposed code of ethics. There must be people/men on the committee with the ‘60s and ‘70s mind set who just think, well, this is just normal. Lots of men,have sex with 12/13 year
olds. This man’s career is too important to lose over this.

It's just one shit thing after another for women and girls these days. Fucking appalling, the short sentence, how early he was released, that he has still been representing his country, and now this. I hope the selectors see reason and decide not to include him.

That poor child.

She's tried to kill herself and self harmed apparently. Yet he still appears to see himself as the victim.

If people are there cheering him on I will be disgusted.

I live in the Netherlands so I am not anti-Dutch as a rule (its actually a really great country)

However, the only way this can be viewed is that Dutch sports authorities condone child rape. This needs to be repeated and repeated and repeated. It needs to follow the rest of the fucking volleyball team around like a cloud. They are really happy to have a child rapist as their team mate. It needs to follow the entire Dutch Olympic team around like a cloud. everytime they get a medal someone needs to overshadow it with story. Because the only way to make them care is through shame and they SHOULD feel ashamed.

He had a 4 year sentence passed in England.

“Except Van de Velde, who was released after serving just 12 months at a Dutch prison”….

This falls far short of what I’d expect from this country.

Paedophiles always see themselves as the victim. And also not like the other paedophiles, you know the actually bad people. Its an incredibly common patterna dnt eh problem is if you spoke to some of them they would come across as likeable and convincing, until you look at what they actually did.

Sadly agree.

He’ll be a poster boy.

That will be one hell of a dangerous re-brand.

It gets worse:

In March 2016, Van de Velde admitted to four counts of rape against a 12-year-old child, and was placed on the violent and sex offender register indefinitely. He was sentenced to serve four years in a British prison by the Aylesbury Crown Court. After serving 1 year of the sentence he was given the chance to resume his career as a beach volleyball player, and continued playing with his partner.

He only served one year before resuming his career.

I don't really want to wade in on the Dutch people seen as liberal debate (and I have many Dutch friends after living there for five years) but that's far from universal. I've been spat on, raped, beaten up and a brick put through my window ever single Queen's/ King's day. It's not this liberal haven people assume because of the drug laws etc. (Sorry to any lovely Dutch people on here, but my experience wasn't great!)

I like the Dutch but there is a lot of hypocrisy (I am sure there is in lots of other countries too). Its easy to miss a lot of the nuance/negatives etc when you are visiting and don't speak the language compared to living there and seeing the bad sides. That said, most of the people I know would not be supportive of a child rapist. This story has not really been that widely reported that I noticed. I shall however be bringing it up.

@IamaRevenant Are you black/not white by the way? There is a lot of defensive "Oh no, we can't possibly be racist, racism is a bad thing that happens in countries like America. So terribly sad what happens there" even when something very obviously racist has happened. I think the ideal of being liberal and tolerant gets confused for reality (except child rapists who apparently we are very tolerant of. Yay.)

Netherlands hosts the highest number of child sexual abuse reports 82,605 (32%) in the EU, followed by Slovakia with 31,826 (12%)
https://www.iwf.org.uk/news-media/news/eu-still-hosts-the-most-child-sexual-abuse-material-in-the-world/

I am very sorry this happened to you. That is awful. 💐

To me that is not about being liberal or not liberal though. Just horrible.

What are the rules on booing at Olympic events?

It’s like Roman Polanski. What does a raped girl here or there matter when it’s an ‘exceptional man’ . ?
Do you not remember the celebrities who rushed to Polanski’s side and still worked with him.

Utterly contemptible.

I'm not usually the most dynamic feminist but I am going to write to the Dutch team saying how shocking this decision is. I hope others will do the same. I need to do something with my rage and I think sending the message, even if it's disregarded is important.

Representing your country is an honour for athletes. I would not like my country to be represented by a convicted child rapist. If I were Dutch I would be outraged and as an onlooker I’m horrified.

🤯

His pitiful sentence.

What would the mechanism for such a short sentence and then releasing him so early have been?

I know people do get released early, but after only 1/4 of their sentence is unusual? It was the British courts that did that 😪

English wikipedia and NL wikipedia are interesting.

The English overview: Steven van de Velde (born 8 August 1994, in The Hague) is a Dutch beach volleyball player and convicted rapist. Van de Velde won the Dutch national championships Under-20 in 2011. With partner Michiel van Dorsten he represented the Netherlands at the 2015 European Games. Together with partner Dirk Boehlé, he finished 3rd at the Blooming Beach Aalsmeer of the 201 blah blah blah. The first main chapter is on his crime

The Dutch overview: Steven van de Velde (Den Haag, 8 augustus 1994) is een Nederlands beachvolleybalspeler. Hij werd vijfmaal nationaal kampioen. His crime is only mentioned much much later, and then its only 2 sentences (one for the crime, one for the sentence) and the description underplays what he did

And then, because I am a loser with time on my hands, I looked at the edit history and there are edits made by people "to make his criminal past more visible..." followed swiftly by another editor reverting to the original. Curious.