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 got 13 months for rape and only one of those months was actually their choice the other 12 was the UK government’s choice. Essentially they thought that one month of imprisonment for rape was acceptable.
Under Dutch law, pressuring a 12 year old into having sex repeatedly (3 times in 2 days) is fornication, not rape. Not making this up, that’s actually their reasoning.
To be fair, of course Durch authorities did not ignore that he was in prison in the UK, so they did not say one month is enough, but 13 months.
To be clear. I’m not defending a rapist. There is some nuance though. The guy was 19 and she said she was 16. They’d been chatting for months, and he flew to the UK for her, believing they were in some sort of relationship. He found out her true age after this.
Was he being naive thinking it’d be alright. Oh yes. Is it still wrong? Definitely. Should be have been punished? Yep.
Is he a pedophile because he had sex with a girl he was in love with and should he be punished for the rest of his life? You tell me.
Judge Francis Sheridan said: "You were a potential Olympian. You had the possibility of a stellar future representing the Netherlands.
“She was a child aged 12. You were fully aware of that fact.”
The Dutch need a metric fuckton of cultural reform. I’m saying this as a descendant of them in Canada.
Blackface is not an acceptable holiday tradition, and marzipan is concentrated evil. Also fuuuuuuuuck rapists, you get nothing, you fucking LOSE, and you goddamn keep losing as an example to any other idiots, good day sir!
As a woman who has been victim to sexual violence, I fear over punishment of rape because if their life can’t get worse there’s no incentive not to murder their victims. He got off too easily for certain, but the goals of Justice should be to protect the victim and ensure the perpetrators don’t do it again as well as to disincentivize those who may commit such crimes with the least amount of harm done to achieve this.
One month sounds like far too little, but “your life is over” means even if they don’t kill their victim victims and police are both less likely to act on legitimate cases. Most rapes are from someone the victim knows and trusts.
That said the team definitely should’ve chosen to not accept him on it.
First of all, sorry this happened to you and thank you for your perspective on this.
There’s a lot of possible middle ways between 13 months and life’s over, though. I’m a strong believer in rehabilitation but there are some necessities, e.g. a sufficient level of remorse which he has not shown as far as I can tell, and basically zero chance of repetition, which to be fair seemingly is the case.
There are some things in my opinion that you should never be able to do as a convicted child rapist even after rehabilitation which includes being a primary care taker of children and representing your country at the Olympics.
Thank you for pointing this out. As another who believes in rehabilitation, this whole situation made me really uncomfortable. I never wanted to defend the asshole, I just hate the way we view criminals on a large scale.
e.g. a sufficient level of remorse which he has not shown as far as I can tell, and basically zero chance of repetition, which to be fair seemingly is the case.
But most people basically want the return of the death sentence without directly killing someone, they just want to take their living and put them under a bridge.
he said it’s the biggest mistake of his life - I sure fucking hope so. This is an empty statement, of course it is.
and he has to bear the consequences - that’s what grinds my gears. No, he doesn’t bear the consequences, his victim does. I would like for him just once to acknowledge that there is an actual victim here and it’s not him. He destroyed her life. Even that carefully crafted PR statement you posted here only ominously mentioned “those involved”. He doesn’t mention her, his organization doesn’t mention her. He calls it a misstep and a mistake, he doesn’t call it what it is, child rape.
If he were truly reformed, he would acknowledge what kind of pain his continuous presence in the public eye inflicts on his victim and others like her and would actually bear the consequences - step down on his own.
Thank you for a level response. In the U.S. especially there are fear and anger knees jerks to some situations where a calm response is an absolute necessity. As always, there is more nuance than there appears.
Yeah one of the common ways victims are dismissed by the police is by asking “do you really want to ruin their life over this”. Now this man repeatedly engaged in statutory rape of an underage individual as I’ve heard, he definitely deserves to be punished more, but also even the guilty and unrepentant deserve a fair hand administering their punishment. But even if they didn’t, that’s the same hand that will punish the repentant and the falsely convicted. The three cannot be separated completely and so we must strive for what we can be comfortable with all three enduring
The problem with this statement here is that the responsibility is shifted to the victim. The victim didn’t mess up the rapist’s life, the rapist did. But this is not an issue of too harsh sentences of rapists but of awful training of police officers.
I think maybe it’s both? Too harsh of sentences (in some cases or jurisdictions) might contribute to a general police mindset which “conflates” the legal repercussions of rape with murder. This leads to or reinforces victim-shaming questions like, “do you really want to ruin their life over this?”
The rule of law and law enforcement need to strike a better balance in both directions I think.
Blackface is an American sensitivity, not Dutch. And there’s plenty of Dutch people as it is that are pushing for it to be changed because it’s seen as offensive to other countries, so there’s also that.
It’s not offensive to a country. It’s offensive to a group of people, particularly dark-skinned people. It is a form of mockery. Unless you’re trying to tell me that the Dutch people who partake in blackface aren’t doing it to mock black and dark skin people. If that’s the case, please educate me
Here’s a summation from another dutch poster @[email protected] a while back:
I’m sorry, but this is just really kind of disingenuous to start something like this next to a topic such as this. Your experience with one company or something is purely anecdotal and the controversy around Zwarte Piet is also very nuanced to this very day. The kind of nuance someone not from here will not get from a casual google search. For anyone that cares about actually understanding, here’s a rundown:
Many people attributed Zwarte Piet as a fun and good role model for kids, not some kind of caricature clown to laugh at. Literally almost everyone grew up knowing and having a fond enjoyment of Zwarte Piet, like a childhood imaginary friend that always showed up when you needed a smile the most. And that creates a strong desire to set that positivity forth by continuing the tradition. It takes really good reasons to destroy something most people attribute to be part of the greater good of their lives.
We try to understand racism, and strive to effectively reduce it rather than just mindlessly treat symptoms. Many people saw the existence of Zwarte Piet as a way to instill positive experiences to kids who might be isolated from having positive experiences with actual people of color. We know that in part racism comes about from not having enough (or too many bad) real world experiences with people of different skin colors. It is a type of fear of the unknown. As such, this still seems like solid reasoning. (Fun note, rats will also not help other stranger rats with a different fur color to escape even with no direct harm to themselves except when they have already lived alongside aside a rat with that fur color)
Even people of color were not completely on one side, but for the ones that it hurt, it hurt loudly. Black people in the Caribbean (Also part of the Netherlands) still use Zwarte Piet to this day, because they do not care - They do not see the racism in it. Unfortunately there seems to be a correlation between being affected by racism and seeing the racism in Zwarte Piet, as many of us learned as the conversation marched on. And racists definitely did wield Zwarte Piet to make their racism be known. In a world without racism, Zwarte Piet would not be controversial. And many people were not acutely aware of the racism some people of color faced.
The majority has wanted to get rid of it (since about 2018, actually), and most places have more accepted solutions in place now. But this does not mean that many people agree because we think Zwarte Piet is actually inherently racist. It’s because we’ve heard the concerns of people of color and weighed their burden to be more important to relieve than the perceived benefit of tradition and instilling a positive message on people that look different from yourself. It also didn’t help that the vast majority of people that still wanted to overrule those concerns were pretty obviously racist, which pushed even more people over the edge, because we don’t want to hold traditions in place that shield racists and bigots. Some countries could really learn from that.
He got 13 months for rape and only one of those months was actually their choice the other 12 was the UK government’s choice. Essentially they thought that one month of imprisonment for rape was acceptable.
They clearly need some change.
What was their reasoning for not punishing the guy? I haven’t heard about that yet. And frankly a year for rape also sounds anomalous
Under Dutch law, pressuring a 12 year old into having sex repeatedly (3 times in 2 days) is fornication, not rape. Not making this up, that’s actually their reasoning.
To be fair, of course Durch authorities did not ignore that he was in prison in the UK, so they did not say one month is enough, but 13 months.
How tf?! Thank you for the information, this is somehow even dumber than I thought
To be clear. I’m not defending a rapist. There is some nuance though. The guy was 19 and she said she was 16. They’d been chatting for months, and he flew to the UK for her, believing they were in some sort of relationship. He found out her true age after this.
Was he being naive thinking it’d be alright. Oh yes. Is it still wrong? Definitely. Should be have been punished? Yep.
Is he a pedophile because he had sex with a girl he was in love with and should he be punished for the rest of his life? You tell me.
That’s wrong, he knew she was twelve before he went to the UK. Don’t make shit up.
He knew before he raped her:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-35861441
The Dutch need a metric fuckton of cultural reform. I’m saying this as a descendant of them in Canada.
Blackface is not an acceptable holiday tradition, and marzipan is concentrated evil. Also fuuuuuuuuck rapists, you get nothing, you fucking LOSE, and you goddamn keep losing as an example to any other idiots, good day sir!
As a woman who has been victim to sexual violence, I fear over punishment of rape because if their life can’t get worse there’s no incentive not to murder their victims. He got off too easily for certain, but the goals of Justice should be to protect the victim and ensure the perpetrators don’t do it again as well as to disincentivize those who may commit such crimes with the least amount of harm done to achieve this.
One month sounds like far too little, but “your life is over” means even if they don’t kill their victim victims and police are both less likely to act on legitimate cases. Most rapes are from someone the victim knows and trusts.
That said the team definitely should’ve chosen to not accept him on it.
Nuance has entered the discussion
First of all, sorry this happened to you and thank you for your perspective on this.
There’s a lot of possible middle ways between 13 months and life’s over, though. I’m a strong believer in rehabilitation but there are some necessities, e.g. a sufficient level of remorse which he has not shown as far as I can tell, and basically zero chance of repetition, which to be fair seemingly is the case.
There are some things in my opinion that you should never be able to do as a convicted child rapist even after rehabilitation which includes being a primary care taker of children and representing your country at the Olympics.
Thank you for pointing this out. As another who believes in rehabilitation, this whole situation made me really uncomfortable. I never wanted to defend the asshole, I just hate the way we view criminals on a large scale.
It literally is the case: https://time.com/7004041/convicted-rapist-competing-olympics-steven-van-de-velde/
But most people basically want the return of the death sentence without directly killing someone, they just want to take their living and put them under a bridge.
Is that remorse here in the room with us?
Just to make clear what I mean:
he said it’s the biggest mistake of his life - I sure fucking hope so. This is an empty statement, of course it is.
and he has to bear the consequences - that’s what grinds my gears. No, he doesn’t bear the consequences, his victim does. I would like for him just once to acknowledge that there is an actual victim here and it’s not him. He destroyed her life. Even that carefully crafted PR statement you posted here only ominously mentioned “those involved”. He doesn’t mention her, his organization doesn’t mention her. He calls it a misstep and a mistake, he doesn’t call it what it is, child rape.
If he were truly reformed, he would acknowledge what kind of pain his continuous presence in the public eye inflicts on his victim and others like her and would actually bear the consequences - step down on his own.
Thank you for a level response. In the U.S. especially there are fear and anger knees jerks to some situations where a calm response is an absolute necessity. As always, there is more nuance than there appears.
Yeah one of the common ways victims are dismissed by the police is by asking “do you really want to ruin their life over this”. Now this man repeatedly engaged in statutory rape of an underage individual as I’ve heard, he definitely deserves to be punished more, but also even the guilty and unrepentant deserve a fair hand administering their punishment. But even if they didn’t, that’s the same hand that will punish the repentant and the falsely convicted. The three cannot be separated completely and so we must strive for what we can be comfortable with all three enduring
The problem with this statement here is that the responsibility is shifted to the victim. The victim didn’t mess up the rapist’s life, the rapist did. But this is not an issue of too harsh sentences of rapists but of awful training of police officers.
I think maybe it’s both? Too harsh of sentences (in some cases or jurisdictions) might contribute to a general police mindset which “conflates” the legal repercussions of rape with murder. This leads to or reinforces victim-shaming questions like, “do you really want to ruin their life over this?”
The rule of law and law enforcement need to strike a better balance in both directions I think.
Blackface is an American sensitivity, not Dutch. And there’s plenty of Dutch people as it is that are pushing for it to be changed because it’s seen as offensive to other countries, so there’s also that.
It’s not offensive to a country. It’s offensive to a group of people, particularly dark-skinned people. It is a form of mockery. Unless you’re trying to tell me that the Dutch people who partake in blackface aren’t doing it to mock black and dark skin people. If that’s the case, please educate me
Here’s a summation from another dutch poster @[email protected] a while back:
I’m sorry, but this is just really kind of disingenuous to start something like this next to a topic such as this. Your experience with one company or something is purely anecdotal and the controversy around Zwarte Piet is also very nuanced to this very day. The kind of nuance someone not from here will not get from a casual google search. For anyone that cares about actually understanding, here’s a rundown:
Many people attributed Zwarte Piet as a fun and good role model for kids, not some kind of caricature clown to laugh at. Literally almost everyone grew up knowing and having a fond enjoyment of Zwarte Piet, like a childhood imaginary friend that always showed up when you needed a smile the most. And that creates a strong desire to set that positivity forth by continuing the tradition. It takes really good reasons to destroy something most people attribute to be part of the greater good of their lives.
We try to understand racism, and strive to effectively reduce it rather than just mindlessly treat symptoms. Many people saw the existence of Zwarte Piet as a way to instill positive experiences to kids who might be isolated from having positive experiences with actual people of color. We know that in part racism comes about from not having enough (or too many bad) real world experiences with people of different skin colors. It is a type of fear of the unknown. As such, this still seems like solid reasoning. (Fun note, rats will also not help other stranger rats with a different fur color to escape even with no direct harm to themselves except when they have already lived alongside aside a rat with that fur color)
Even people of color were not completely on one side, but for the ones that it hurt, it hurt loudly. Black people in the Caribbean (Also part of the Netherlands) still use Zwarte Piet to this day, because they do not care - They do not see the racism in it. Unfortunately there seems to be a correlation between being affected by racism and seeing the racism in Zwarte Piet, as many of us learned as the conversation marched on. And racists definitely did wield Zwarte Piet to make their racism be known. In a world without racism, Zwarte Piet would not be controversial. And many people were not acutely aware of the racism some people of color faced.
The majority has wanted to get rid of it (since about 2018, actually), and most places have more accepted solutions in place now. But this does not mean that many people agree because we think Zwarte Piet is actually inherently racist. It’s because we’ve heard the concerns of people of color and weighed their burden to be more important to relieve than the perceived benefit of tradition and instilling a positive message on people that look different from yourself. It also didn’t help that the vast majority of people that still wanted to overrule those concerns were pretty obviously racist, which pushed even more people over the edge, because we don’t want to hold traditions in place that shield racists and bigots. Some countries could really learn from that.
Yeah that’s just not true.
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/people-nation-empire/make-yourself-at-home/the-black-and-white-minstrel-show