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.
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.
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.