Steven van de Velde: Dutch volleyball player raped 12-year-old girl before marrying policewoman

They were soon speaking daily via various social media platforms and in August 2014, he arranged a trip to her hometown of Milton Keynes. After taking an EasyJet flight to Luton, he met up with the schoolgirl, who had told her family she was staying with a friend.

Van de Velde originally wanted to book a hotel room, but instead they drove to nearby Furzton Lake. He plied her with Baileys and then sexually assaulted her before they spent the night between cardboard boxes under a staircase in a Premier Inn.

The next day, when her family was out and she had a free house, he raped her in her sister’s bedroom. She was not using any contraceptives, Van de Velde simply told her to take the morning-after pill.

It was her visit to a family planning clinic that alerted the authorities. Over a year later, a European arrest warrant was issued against him. He was extradited to the United Kingdom in January 2016 and his trial took place in March of the same year.

He had won another national championship just months earlier and was on track to compete in the Summer Olympics in Rio. Van de Velde pleaded guilty to three counts of child rape, specifically “rape of a child under the age of 13.”

Aylesbury Crown Court heard his victim was wracked with guilt after the ordeal, self-harmed and once overdosed as a result. His lawyer Linda Strudwick, meanwhile, argued he was not a “predatory young man” and insisted it was a “spontaneous decision” to fly to the UK and not “for the purpose of having sex”.

During the sentencing, Judge Francis Sheridan told Van de Velde: “Your hopes of representing your country are now a shattered dream.” He continued: “The emotional damage done to this child is enormous. When she grows up, she will have to realise that you are not the nice man she thought and hoped you would be.”

His four-year prison sentence was drastically reduced after he was transferred to the Netherlands. As part of the agreement with Britain, the charges and sentence were adjusted to Dutch law. For example, the charge of rape was changed to “indecency” – a less serious crime. As a result, he was released after just one year.

Shortly afterwards, he told the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad: “I was branded as a sex monster, a paedophile. I am not that – really not.” The following year, in an interview with NOS, he said: “I made this decision in my life when I was not ready.”

“I was kind of lost and now I have so much more life experience. Everyone wants to be liked, everyone wants to be respected and with something like that on your record it’s difficult. I can’t undo it, so I have to accept the consequences. It’s the biggest mistake of my life.”

The Dutch Volleyball Association allowed him to return to action and he has been participating in international tournaments since 2018. The association’s Olympic Committee said the decision was made “after a special treatment program.” It also added: “Van de Velde has fully met all requirements and complied with all strict risk assessment thresholds, controls and due diligence. Experts have stated that there is no risk of relapse.”

“Van de Velde has always acted transparently in this case, which he describes as the biggest misstep of his life. He deeply regrets the consequences of his actions for those involved.”

Outside of court, he fell in love with Behrens, whom he began dating in 2018 – by then she was already a trained police officer and working in Stuttgart. They married on New Year’s Day 2022 and she took his last name. In March of the same year, she gave birth to their first child, a now two-year-old son.

Van de Velde will begin his gold medal quest on Sunday morning (July 28) in Paris with partner Matthew Immers. The Dutch Olympic Committee has said he meets “all the qualification criteria for the Olympic Games”, while the International Olympic Committee says it is “the sole responsibility of each National Olympic Committee” to nominate whom it nominates.