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Dutch Olympian who raped a 12-year-old girl ‘is not a paedophile’, official says (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

132 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A senior official with the Dutch Olympic committee has insisted that a convicted child rapist in its beach volleyball team is not a paedophile, in an email seen by the Guardian.

A concerned British man who has lived in the Netherlands for more than a decade, wrote to the Dutch Olympic committee and called the inclusion of Steven van de Velde in the team “a stain on the Dutch national side”. In a reply the Dutch Olympic committee spokesperson wrote: “Steven is NOT a peadophile [sic]; you really don’t think that de Dutch NOC would send someone to Paris who IS a real risk? No, he isn’t a risk.”

There has been mounting public anger at the presence of the beach volleyball player Van de Velde, who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old British girl in 2016. Earlier this week the International Olympic Committee faced calls for an investigation into how a convicted child rapist has been allowed to compete at Paris 2024. The IOC has said the selection of athletes for the Games was the responsibility of individual committees.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Van de Velde has consistently remained transparent about the case which he refers to as the most significant misstep of his life.

Raping a 12 year-old child is a misstep, people; relax! Yesterday I accidentally stepped in some dog poo; we're exactly the same!!!

This dude has no place in the Olympics. The Dutch standing behind him is disgraceful.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I actually wholeheartedly believe in reintegration of convicted criminals in society. I also, maybe even more wholeheartedly, believe that pedophiles need to be open about it so that they can get the help to cope with their urges, and we should not be judgemental about it and stigmatize them ahead of time - the majority of SA offenders who attack minors are not pedophiles. You won't prevent a pedophile from assaulting a minor by yelling at him for his preferences alone.

Now, that being said, fuck this guy. A misstep? If this happened in 2016 he should still be serving his sentence and definitely not be back on the Olympic team.

Ok, I looked it up: it happened in 2014, so he was 20 then. The age of consent in the Netherlands is surprisingly high (16), so you cannot even claim due diligence or anything. (I am from Germany and over here it is 14, and I have known a couple of 14-18+ relationships, and I could have seen a case where a German 18 year old guy has sexual relations with a British 15 year old and gets in trouble because of this.) He was sentenced to 4 years and served 1. One year for raping a 12 year old girl when he was 20. Wtf? The judges should be ashamed. And as for the Olympic team, shame on them too. This guy should not be representing your country.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Dunno if I'd call 16 "surprisingly high", here in America, at least, it's 18. To the extent anyone thinks we should change it (it's not a common point of discussion, except that there's legal inconsistency between ages of consent for sex, smoking, drinking, driving, owning firearms, etc.), they think it should be 21. We also have Romeo and Juliet laws, which protect relationships between minors and people of very close ages (such as between 17 yrs and 18 yrs) from the same level of punishment as an adult assaulting a minor.

It's 14 in Germany? Yuck.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The age of consent in America is not 18 everywhere. It is set by each state and ranges from 16-18. From Wikipedia:

While the unrestricted age of consent is between 16 and 18 in all U.S. states, the laws have widely varied across the country in the past. In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.[104] The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century.[105][106] By 1920, 26 states had an age of consent at 16, 21 states had an age of consent at 18, and one state (Georgia) had an age of consent at 14.[104] Small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920. The last two states to raise their age of general consent from under 16 to 16 or higher were Georgia, which raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 in 1995,[107] and Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001.[108]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Why shouldn't it be 14. With 14 you're old enough to stand trial so you're old enough to decide who you want to fuck. There's staggered protections, though:

No exploitation of lack of sense of sexual self-determination of under 16yolds if the perpetrator is over 21. Over 16 that sense is presumed to be present, and under 21yolds aren't themselves considered mature enough to know what they're doing. Also from 18-21 either juvenile or adult criminal law may apply, depends on the defendant.
No sex against money or money-valued things (prostitution, sugar daddying) until 18, also no sex with persons in a position of authority, trust, care, etc (teacher, boss, whatnot). Also, no porn.
No recruitment into prostitution under 21years old (side note that's where a good chunk of the "human trafficking" statistic in Germany comes from. I'm not saying the law is bad all I'm saying we shouldn't confuse chaining women to radiators with driving through the Romanian countryside asking gals whether they want to make lots of money).

Technically 13/14 relationships are illegal, but courts apply Radbruch's formula to throw those cases out.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Technically he was 19. Also under Dutch law the term rape would imply the use of force, which was either not the case or not considered proven hence why the sentence ended up being lowered.

Still awful. Just trying to get the fact straight so people can judge for themselves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

That's what I assumed. Probably the 12 year old "agreed" to everything.

I'll be frank here, I remember being a teen in Germany. And let me tell you these were some horny times for some classmates. But at no point, also not looking back, would I have said any of these girls or boys who were sexually active at 14, 13 or even 12, have done so out of pressure or against their will. And judging from what I know of them today, all of them are in secure, healthy relationships and live happy, successful, and fulfilling lives. I'll also point out that we have sex ed from early on (I remember in elementary), so at the age of consent everyone of us has put a condom on a banana in class at least once. Everyone knows where babies come from, we learn how cycles work, what different kinds of contraceptives there are. Also, just because the age of consent is 14 doesn't mean you are required to lose your virginity at or by age 14.

Now, you still have to draw the line somewhere. I personally don't think it should be 18 because it's just unrealistic to assume that teenagers won't have sex. Or that they will only have sex with other teenagers. "Gap laws" seem sensible to me. But that's just my opinion, and it is very influenced by the open culture and a societal distinction between kids and youngsters.

And in this case, he is from a country where the age of consent was set to 16. In Britain it is also 16. So even if I can somehow imagine that it was "mutual", 19 and 12 is in no way even close to legal in neither country. I don't really know how this case has made it to court. As I said, I know quite a bunch of people who had sex before the age of consent, but they usually kept that, well, out of the courtroom.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

A "misstep" happens once. You learn from it, and avoid doing it again. He did it 3 times. He wenr to bed, woke up, and said "lets do it again". Thats not a "misstep" anymore.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Yesterday I accidentally stepped in some dog poo; we're exactly the same!!!

Classic poopiphile behavior.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

gotta love how the terfs defending trans women being excluded from the olympics are still saying that a guy who sa'ed a 12 year old girl is just misunderstood. maybe it's not actually about protecting children.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Maybe I live in a nicer part of the internet but I have not seen anyone come close to supporting this man.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

On one hand, the Olympic Games are a sporting event and past criminal convictions should not automatically disqualify someone from competing

But on the other hand, he raped a twelve year old girl. That's irredeemable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I know there are laws where you can't travel to certain countries with criminal convictions. Like if you have a DUI you can't go to Canada. Surely a child rape conviction should keep you out of France.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Meanwhile a female equestrian was banned for hitting a horse.

Maybe she should’ve fucked it, that would be fine it seems? 🤣

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Let's not compare that, I'm happy she was banned. I know you don't want to say it was ok, but the comparison could be used to pardon her behaviour.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I suspect if it was a man hitting the horse, it would have been brushed away as "part of the sport".

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Please explain why he raped a CHILD if he's not a pedophile then

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Don't know if this is the case here, but the word pedophile refers to someone who is sexually attracted to children, and rapists don't necessarily have to be attracted to their victims. There can be other motivations at play. So yeah, it's possible that someone raping a child is not actually a pedophile. Doesn't make it any less disgusting of course, and I have no clue why anyone thought "but he's not a pedo" would be a reasonable argument here

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Let's briefly set aside the fact that she was 12.

He was convicted of raping another person... period. That alone should disqualify him from representing his country at the Olympics.

Now back to your regular scheduled world wide publicity for Steven van de Velde, who repeatedly raped a 12 year old girl.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yea, wtf is this shit? He’s a convicted rapist. The end.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But apparently not a pedophile. Not sure how that works, I'm also unclear on why it's even relevant.

If he'd murdered someone would that be better or worse?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

They just want to clarify that he's not selective, he'd also rape adult women if given the opportunity.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

He might not be a pedophile, we'll never know, but he sure is literally a convicted child molester, wtf

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Oh, somebody already wrote that.

We don't know it he's a pedophile (strictly speaking that's not a crime), but he surely is a child rapist which is the problem.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I swear, definitions of words are just seemingly lost in this age.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The world has going immensely nuts;

Genocide seems okay by most of the presidents.
Calling for justice is a hate crime and gets you arrested.
Racism and Fascism on the rise.
Raping a 12 year old person seems to be okay, doesn’t get you labeled as a pedophile.
Calling out that Zionism is in fact bad gets you the “antisemitic” name.
Quoting Hitler seems to be okay
Saying that you want to erase and nuke a whole group/race seems to be okay.

I’m seriously worried for the future.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

All of those things happened in the past, too. Probably even more than now.

I think the difference, now, is that it gets called out a lot more. In the past, it happened quietly and people went along or pretended to not notice. Now, people are calling it out and the shitty people have to openly defend it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

With regard to this specific issue, you don't even have to go looking for cases of young women being discouraged from reporting rape and sexual assault allegations against promising young athletes, because "think how you could hurt his future prospects" -- examples are so plentiful that you can't help but find them if you spend any time reviewing sports news. It's really only been in the last decade or so that anybody has seriously pushed back against the idea that Johnny Sportsball's ability to score points for the local team is more important than the safety and bodily autonomy of women.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (4 children)

You mean like the rapist Brock Allen Turner?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_van_de_Velde

Under a treaty between the Netherlands and UK, Van de Velde was transferred to the Netherlands to serve his sentence. The sentence was at that time adjusted in line with Dutch law, and the charge of rape was substituted for that of fornication.[11] After serving a year of his original four year sentence, he was released from prison.[8]

So basically the Dutch think it's ok for a 19 year old to get a 12 year old drunk and rape her.

The victim would eventually go on to self-harm and once overdosed.

Some people are saying it ok because it was consensual, this doesn't make it sound very consensual to me.

Wtf.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Consensual? Kids cannot consent. Kids are confused, curious hormone bombs who are easily manipulated and tend to put a lot of trust in adults who sound like they know what they're doing. That's the entire point of why we place that responsibility on the adults, and not the kids who don't know what the fuck they're doing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Generally I believe in rehab but this case is seriously WTF. The dude's lack of remorse is even bigger WTF. No one should be defending this monster.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Some people are saying..."

Who Tyler... Who are you talking about here?

You can't have consensual sex with a 12 year old.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Further down in this thread. https://lemmy.ca/post/25818425/10643476

Also https://www.gbnews.com/sport/dutch-olympic-committee-defend-steven-van-de-velde-rape

De Telegraaf newspaper played down the conviction, insisting that “they had consensual sex” and that “sex with a 12-year-old girl is labelled as rape” in Britain, while in the Netherlands “punishment in this area is much milder”.

I agree with you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

That comment isn't saying it was consensual; it's saying her age is what made it nonconsensual, so you can't just ignore her age.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

That girl would be 20 by now. Probably out trying to study or looking for a job, and has to see his face broadcast on the largest stage in the world...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Okay, WHEW. I was getting worried that NL was going to let a pedophile rapist represent their country but it turns out they are merely letting a rapist of 12 year olds represent their country which, as we all know, is way better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Well his Wikipedia page is the stuff of horror

In August 2014 van de Velde, then 19 years old, raped a 12-year-old girl he had met on Facebook who lived in Milton Keynes, England. He travelled to her home and, when her mother was out, gave her alcohol and then raped her several times at her home as well as near Furzton Lake which was nearby. The victim would eventually go on to self-harm and once overdosed. Van de Velde returned to the Netherlands after the rape, although he was eventually extradited to the United Kingdom and arrested in January 2016

After his release in 2017, van de Velde complained about "all the nonsense" reporting on his crime in the media, claiming that the term pedophile did not apply to him, without expanding further. At the same time he stated not yet having read any of the reporting he was criticizing. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) condemned his comments at the time, stating that his "lack of remorse and self-pity is breathtaking".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The whole situation aside... what is up with the email skills of the Dutch Olympic Committee? This email is legit worded like a text message or a Lemmy comment

"Steven is NOT a peadophile; you really don’t think that de Dutch NOC would send someone to Paris who IS a real risk? No, he isn’t a risk.”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

[email protected] content

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Just boycott the Olympics.

That's what I've done /shrug

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