2 days Ago By Amy Woodyatt and Dominique Tassell
A Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison for raping a child 10 years ago will represent the Netherlands at this year’s Olympics. Steven van de Velde, who is now 29, raped a 12-year-old girl in 2014 after travelling from his homeland to England , according to British media. He was then sentenced to four years in an English prison in 2016, but was released and travelled home to the Netherlands in 2017.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Van de Velde was then released and returned to playing in 2017, according to Dutch Volleyball Federation Nevobo. He will remain on the UK’s Violent and Sex Offender Register for life. Van de Velde has now been selected to represent the Netherlands in beach volleyball for this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.
“We know Steven’s history,” Nevobo’s general director Michel Everaert said in a statement. The federation spoke extensively with the Dutch National Olympic Committee (NOC), the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) and van de Velde before his return to the sport, Everaert said. “He was convicted at the time according to English law and he has served his sentence,” he said.
“From then on, we have been in constant contact with Steven, who has now been fully reintegrated into the Dutch volleyball community.” In 2018, van de Velde told national broadcaster NOS: “I did what I did. I can’t take it back, so I will have to carry the consequences.
You can judge, of course. It is the bigges.
