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.
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.
You, like most people in this thread, are confusing support for a person with support for a form of punishment which is humanitarian and rehabilitative, rather than vengeful and punitive.
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.
Is it? What do you read into that?
That Dutch people are apparently not as supportive of a child rapist from their country than other people from other countries are.
You, like most people in this thread, are confusing support for a person with support for a form of punishment which is humanitarian and rehabilitative, rather than vengeful and punitive.
How is a year in prison for repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl either humanitarian or rehabilitative?
He called it nonsense. He joked about finding 10-year-olds at this Olympics. He has never made a public apology. Where is the sign rehabilitation?