Dutch volleyball player and child rapist denied Australian visa

Dutch Olympic volleyball player convicted of raping a British girl a decade ago he was refused a visa to compete in Australia.

Steven van de Velde, 31, was due to play at the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Adelaide, South Australia, next month.

In 2016, the then 21-year-old pleaded guilty to three counts of raping a 12-year-old girl in Milton Keynes and was jailed for four years. He met the girl on Facebook and traveled to England from Amsterdam before raping her at her home in 2014.

Two weeks ago, South Australia’s Attorney-General Kyam Maher wrote to the federal government urging authorities to refuse his visa because his crimes were “absolutely heinous”.

The letter also said that “we do not believe that foreign child sex offenders should be allowed access to this country.”

Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the government would “continue to use every tool at its disposal to ensure Australians can be safe and feel secure in their communities”.

After the rape in 2014, Van de Velde returned to the Netherlands, but in 2016 he was extradited to Britain and arrested. Before sentencing, the court heard he was aware of the girl’s age.

He served 12 months of his four-year sentence and resumed his professional sports career in 2018, playing for his national team in several world tournaments.

Last year he represented the Netherlands at the Paris Olympics and was booed by some people in the crowd. Earlier, an online petition calling for him to be banned from the Olympics garnered 90,000 signatures.

The BBC has contacted World Cup organizers South Australia and the Dutch National Volleyball Association for comment.