In 2016, Steven van de Velde pleaded guilty to three counts of raping a 12-year British schoolgirl. On Sunday, the registered sex offender was knocked out of the Paris Olympics.
He’s still going to be representing the team in the next competition. You guys need to make sure your government knows it’s not ok to send child groomer rapists onto the world stage to represent you. And his teammates seem to be ok with playing aside him again.
“If I can speak for him, after the match we lost, we were disappointed,” Immers said of his teammate Van de Velde. “But we said to each other: ‘Look what we did together. Look how hard we fought with all the attention.’ We stayed together. We cried together off the field and said, ‘OK, let’s just enjoy this moment.’ And we did that. So I’m happy we did it that way.”
Van de Velde and Immers will play together next in the European championships in the Netherlands right after the Olympics, and then the Dutch championships.
Sorry, but this is kind of fucked up. No offense to you personally, but my opinion of the Dutch just took a nosedive.
To be fair, seeing all the media coverage of him probably doesn’t help the girl he raped, either. It would be better for all involved parties that he just quietly retired from public life.
He was first extradited by the Dutch and also imprisoned in the Netherlands (as is normal in international crimes). It’s not like they sprung him from a UK prison.
I totally agree with you and fuck this guy, but there is some context to his sentence here in the Netherlands:
One legal distinction is that Van de Velde is unlikely to have been convicted of rape had he stood trial in the Netherlands rather than England. In England, sex with a 12-year-old is rape, regardless of the circumstances: an under-16 cannot legally consent. But after he was extradited to the Netherlands, having serving almost a year of his prison sentence, he was released after less than a month. Under Dutch law, his crime was deemed to be the lesser offence of ontucht, sexual acts that violate social-ethical norms.
Oh I know. It’s disgusting, but it’s the law and you can’t retroactively change it. But they could, at the very least, not let the fucker on their Olympics team.
It’s not even about whether he’s rehabilitated. Even if he never even thinks about molesting another kid he should be shunned and criticized and certainly never put on a global stage. Being rehabilitated doesn’t un-rape a kid.
He’s just a douche, playing a sport. I feel like the attribution of what a big honor this is falls kinda flat when nobody really cares about most athlethes, just the countries that take home the prizes.
And while we’re on this, and leaving the question of his rehabilitation aside, if you don’t believe someone who let’s presume has been changed by the justice system and would be a regular member of society going forward cannot be in the public eye, what’s even the point of going through the justice system to reform people?
The stain of past actions surely never goes anywhere, but if people can’t even go on to live a similar life to an innocent, why bother to claim we want to rehabilitate people at all? Serving 30 years in prison wouldn’t unmurder a person, why not just give the guy the chair and be done with it? Not like he can show his face in public or be considered for his abilities ever again, only for his past.
It’s easy to defend a rehabilitative system of justice when the crimes are petty, but one must defend it in equal measure when the crimes are grave, and even when, in my opinion in this case, it kind of misses. Sometimes bad guys get off too easy, but if they never commit such an act again, did the system not do its job?
I’m pretty sure he would be free to drive across Schengen borders to France in a few hours anyway. Having a criminal conviction doesn’t usually revoke the right to free travel.
He wasn’t even allowed to serve his full sentence and be rehabilitated. He was sent home from the UK after a year and the Dutch released him and claimed him rehabed. Meanwhile he refuses to show remorse, refuses to admit he did anything beyond a “mistake”.
Also why didn’t he stay in the Olympics village? Cause there are kids there and he’s a child rapist and his own government knows it. If you’re so sure he’s rehabilitated, go all the way and show us you mean it and let him babysit your kids.
Going to the Olympics is a privilege not a right. You lose certain privileges forever when you rape kids.
Do you think the Dutch prison system taught him not to travel internationally to give 12 year olds liquor so he could rape them? Do you think it did so in under a month?
I mean that is the idea of rehabilitation, yeah. I don’t know where you are getting “under a month” from. He was in prison for 13 months and was released on parole, which would probably also include some rehabilitation activities.
Apologies, I had read a source on lemmy saying he’d served 12 months of his sentence in England before being transferred back to the Netherlands, but I can’t confirm it at this time.
edit: Forbes and New York Times say he served a year in Britain and then had his sentence reduced upon repatriation.
And I know Britain didn’t prioritize his rehabilitation in any way.
That’s a very interesting piece of information actually, I didn’t see that anywhere else. Implies they didn’t agree with the UK verdict in the first place.
He’s still going to be representing the team in the next competition. You guys need to make sure your government knows it’s not ok to send child groomer rapists onto the world stage to represent you. And his teammates seem to be ok with playing aside him again.
Sorry, but this is kind of fucked up. No offense to you personally, but my opinion of the Dutch just took a nosedive.
You dislike the Dutch now because their system of imprisonment is based on rehabilitation?
This has nothing to do with the system.
His victim tried to self harm, and now she gets to see him living his best life at the olympics.
Where is the justice to his victim who gets to live a life of mental hell while he gets to be on TV?
There are plenty of things he could be doing with his life other than the olympics and torturing his victim all over again.
To be fair, seeing all the media coverage of him probably doesn’t help the girl he raped, either. It would be better for all involved parties that he just quietly retired from public life.
He was imprisoned by the UK, not the Dutch. The Dutch got him out of prison. After a year. For raping a 12-year-old multiple times.
He was first extradited by the Dutch and also imprisoned in the Netherlands (as is normal in international crimes). It’s not like they sprung him from a UK prison.
And exactly how long was he in prison in the Netherlands? For repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl?
I totally agree with you and fuck this guy, but there is some context to his sentence here in the Netherlands:
From https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/30/netherlands-child-rapist-olympics-steven-van-de-velde
Oh I know. It’s disgusting, but it’s the law and you can’t retroactively change it. But they could, at the very least, not let the fucker on their Olympics team.
100% agree. I’m Dutch and he’s sent there to represent me/us/the country, it’s fucking disgusting.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that none of the people in this thread defending him being on the team seem to be Dutch.
It’s not even about whether he’s rehabilitated. Even if he never even thinks about molesting another kid he should be shunned and criticized and certainly never put on a global stage. Being rehabilitated doesn’t un-rape a kid.
He’s just a douche, playing a sport. I feel like the attribution of what a big honor this is falls kinda flat when nobody really cares about most athlethes, just the countries that take home the prizes.
And while we’re on this, and leaving the question of his rehabilitation aside, if you don’t believe someone who let’s presume has been changed by the justice system and would be a regular member of society going forward cannot be in the public eye, what’s even the point of going through the justice system to reform people?
The stain of past actions surely never goes anywhere, but if people can’t even go on to live a similar life to an innocent, why bother to claim we want to rehabilitate people at all? Serving 30 years in prison wouldn’t unmurder a person, why not just give the guy the chair and be done with it? Not like he can show his face in public or be considered for his abilities ever again, only for his past.
It’s easy to defend a rehabilitative system of justice when the crimes are petty, but one must defend it in equal measure when the crimes are grave, and even when, in my opinion in this case, it kind of misses. Sometimes bad guys get off too easy, but if they never commit such an act again, did the system not do its job?
Nah, I hate them because their government sends known child rapists to other countries.
I’m pretty sure he would be free to drive across Schengen borders to France in a few hours anyway. Having a criminal conviction doesn’t usually revoke the right to free travel.
Just how far will you go to defend child rapists?
You seriously have a weird obsession with child rapists.
Please point me to the words I posted in defence of his actions.
I hope you’re not from the US or the UK because I have some bad news for you…
When did the conversation switch to the Vatican?
He wasn’t even allowed to serve his full sentence and be rehabilitated. He was sent home from the UK after a year and the Dutch released him and claimed him rehabed. Meanwhile he refuses to show remorse, refuses to admit he did anything beyond a “mistake”. Also why didn’t he stay in the Olympics village? Cause there are kids there and he’s a child rapist and his own government knows it. If you’re so sure he’s rehabilitated, go all the way and show us you mean it and let him babysit your kids.
Going to the Olympics is a privilege not a right. You lose certain privileges forever when you rape kids.
Do you think the Dutch prison system taught him not to travel internationally to give 12 year olds liquor so he could rape them? Do you think it did so in under a month?
I mean that is the idea of rehabilitation, yeah. I don’t know where you are getting “under a month” from. He was in prison for 13 months and was released on parole, which would probably also include some rehabilitation activities.
Apologies, I had read a source on lemmy saying he’d served 12 months of his sentence in England before being transferred back to the Netherlands, but I can’t confirm it at this time.
edit: Forbes and New York Times say he served a year in Britain and then had his sentence reduced upon repatriation.
And I know Britain didn’t prioritize his rehabilitation in any way.
That’s a very interesting piece of information actually, I didn’t see that anywhere else. Implies they didn’t agree with the UK verdict in the first place.