The playing partner of Steven van de Velde, the Dutch Olympian permitted to compete in beach volleyball at the Paris Games despite raping a 12-year-old British girl, has described him as being “like a second father to me”.
Van de Velde refused to answer questions upon arrival in Paris where he was confronted by a Daily Mail journalist. Matthew Immers, the other half of the Netherlands pair, has mounted a staunch defence of his team-mate.
“I feel comfortable with him, we take good care of each other,” he said. “I’m 23, he’s 29. He’s also a kind of a second father to me, who supports me. Now we’re going to the Games and it has become a big thing. But everything else has stayed the same.”
The presence in Paris of Van de Velde, who in March 2016 admitted three counts of rape against a child he had met on Facebook, has sparked ferocious controversy. He had travelled from the Netherlands to the UK in August 2014, when he was 19, to meet his victim. While the judge sentencing him to four years in prison had told him that his Olympic ambitions were a “shattered dream”, he and Immers have since emerged as medal contenders at these Games as the 11th-ranked team in the world.
It seems the Europeans are having a hard time with his selection to play