‘Sex monster’ volleyball star jailed for raping 12-year-old British girl after inciting her on Facebook QUALIFIES for Olympics

A VOLLEYBALL star who was jailed for raping a British woman has qualified for next month’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Steven Van de Velde flew from his native Netherlands to the UK to meet his 12-year-old victim after inciting her via Facebook.

He was 19 when he met the girl in 2014.

Van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after confessing to three counts of rape.

Judge Francis Sheridan told him at the time: “Before you came to this country, you trained as a potential Olympian.

“Your hopes of representing your country are now a shattered dream.”

Linda Strudwick, Van de Velde’s own defence lawyer, said of the Aylesbury Crown Court verdict: “The headlines say it all: ‘A sex monster.’

“This is clearly the end of his career.”

However, the beach volleyball player is now on the verge of returning to the spotlight after securing his place at the Paris Games in July.

The now 29-year-old qualified alongside his partner Matthew Immers, and the pair are now the 11th-ranked team in the world, reports The Telegraph.

Van de Velde was released in 2017 after only twelve months in a Dutch prison and has since been allowed to continue his Olympic career.

As Aylesbury Crown Court heard during his trial almost a decade ago, Van de Velde travelled to the UK to meet and have sex with his victim.

Prosecutor Sandra Beck told the court at the time: “She describes that she met Steven Van de Velde through Facebook, that they spoke to each other regularly through Facebook and that he made her feel special.”

“She made it clear that she was seven years younger than him.

“This relationship through social media existed over a period of time.”

The girl had added the Dutch player as a friend on Facebook after he allegedly commented on one of her photos, the court heard.

The couple then chatted every day via Facebook, Snapchat and Skype before he visited her in Milton Keynes in 2014.

The girl told her family that she was staying with a friend and sneaked out to try to meet the 19-year-old at a hotel.

When they couldn’t make an appointment, they went to Furzton Lake in the city, drank Baileys and she performed sexual acts on him.

The couple slept in cardboard boxes under a stairwell at the Premier Inn because they couldn’t get a room afterwards.

The next morning, she allegedly took him to her empty house where they had sex.

Before returning to the Netherlands, Van de Velde advised the girl to take the morning-after pill because they had not used contraception.

The girl’s visit to a family planning clinic alerted the authorities, who intervened because of her young age.

Van de Velde from Voorburg was subsequently extradited to the United Kingdom in January 2014 and arrested on suspicion of sexual conduct.

After his release from prison in 2017, the disgraced athlete said: “I want to correct all the nonsense that was written about me when I was incarcerated.”

“I didn’t read it on purpose, but I understand that it was pretty bad that I was branded a sex monster, a pedophile. I’m not that, really not.”

“Everyone can have their opinion about me, but it’s only fair that they also know my side of the story.”