Australia's Olympics boss lashes out after man who raped a 12-year-old was selected for the Paris Games

Australia's Olympics boss Anna Meares says convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde, who is part of the Dutch beach volleyball squad, would never have been selected for the Australian Olympic team.

Van de Velde, 29, was jailed in March 2016 after pleading guilty to raping a 12-year-old girl when he was 19.

The talented athlete, who met his victim through Facebook, travelled from Amsterdam to the UK and raped the girl.

Van de Velde knew the girl's age when he assaulted her and his name remains on the UK's Sex Offender register.

When he was sentenced the judge said his hopes of representing his country were now 'a shattered dream'.

The Dutchman served just 12 months of his four-year sentence and was picked in June for the Dutch Olympic team.

Meares - who is the Chef de Mission in Paris - explained that selection situation would never arise with the Australian team.

'If an athlete or staff member had that conviction they would not be allowed to be a member of our team,' Meares said.

'We have stringent policies on safeguarding within our team.'

In the eight years since his release from prison the 29-year-old’s life has undergone a stunning transformation.

Not only has van de Velde been welcomed back into the Dutch volleyball community and nurtured back onto an international pathway, but his personal life has also flourished.

In 2022, he married a former policewoman from Munster in Germany who is also a professional beach volleyball player. The couple have a two-year-old son.

How his victim has fared in the intervening years isn’t known, but when van de Velde was sentenced the court heard that since the incident she had been self-harming and had also attempted to take an overdose.

According to the NOC (Dutch Olympic Committee), van de Velde was able to return to volleyball in 2018 after ‘an intensive professionally supervised trajectory’.

It stated: ‘After his release, he sought and received professional counselling. He demonstrated to those around him — privately and professionally — self-insight and reflection.

‘Van de Velde now meets all the qualification requirements for the Olympic Games and is therefore part of the team.’

The decision to allow van de Velde to return to national beach volleyball in the Netherlands was dependent on certain conditions, however. He is not allowed, for example, to give training to underage girls.

Sources in the Netherlands say the sports star knew when deciding to compete in this summer’s Olympics that his disturbing past would come back to haunt him.

In a statement he said: ‘I cannot reverse what happened, my past cannot be erased. I bear the consequences. It was the biggest mistake of my life.’