A convicted child rapist will be representing The Netherlands in men’s beach volleyball at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In 2014, Steven Van De Velde, then 19, flew to Milton Keynes, England, and raped a 12-year-old child he met on Facebook.
He was sentenced to serve four years in prison in 2016 and was released in 2017.
Van de Velde, now 29, has been placed on the United Kingdom’s sex offender registry for life since 2016 – but the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC) and the the Dutch Volleyball Federation (NSF) are standing by their decision to let him represent their country on the world stage.
“We know Steven’s history. Before he expressed his desire to return to beach volleyball at the time, we spoke extensively with him but also with NOC*NSF, among others,” said Michel Everaert, general director at Nevobo, in a statement.
Van de Velde’s case was tried in the United Kingdom at Aylesbury crown court.
The prosecution made it clear that the victim, who remains anonymous, had been upfront with the volleyball star that she was seven years his junior.
Sandra Beck, the prosecuting lawyer on the case, said at the trial, “She describes that she had met Steven Van de Velde on Facebook, they spoke regularly through that and he made her feel special.”
Three days before a warrant was issued for Van de Velde’s arrest in 2015, he was named the Dutch volleyball champion with his teammate Dirk Boehle – and would have been training at the time for the 2016 Olympic team, according to the Milton Keynes Citizen.
“You may judge, of course. It was the biggest mistake of my life,” Van de Velde said in a sit-down video interview with Nevobo in 2018. “I can’t reverse it, I did what I did, so I have to carry the consequences.”
The NOC said in a statement to the media that the volleyballer was able to return to the sport in 2018 after “an intensive professionally supervised trajectory.”
“Van de Velde now meets all the qualification requirements for the Olympic Games and is therefore part of the team,” it added.
At the time of his conviction, the judge said “You were the adult, she was the child, and until you recognize that, you will remain a danger to young girls.”
“The emotional harm that has been caused to this child is enormous,” the jurist said. “As she matures, she will have to come to realize that you are not the nice man she thought you were and hoped you might be.”
After Van de Velde’s sentencing in 2016, Nevobo’s Everaert said to the Milton Keynes citizen, “He could have made it all the way to the top.”
