It is not difficult to reconstruct the truth

Yes, well clearly it wasn't rape in the sense of coerced sex. Ideally, I think it would be better if the relationship had the blessing of the parents, but of course we live in a world that is less than ideal. I don't think there's any reason to doubt the defending lawyer's claim that “This was a caring and loving relationship between two people, a girl who was nearly 13 and an older boy of 19, but one who was very young and more of an adolescent.” and “Despite the good looks and fan base, Steven Van de Velde did not take advantage - he looks for love in a relationship ... They began to chat on a daily basis... There was mutual support as two angst ridden juveniles.” We are told that the girl had self-harmed and taken an overdose, but later in the article we find out why: “The court had heard how Van de Velde’s child victim had been consumed with guilt in the wake of his arrest and felt responsible for him being in custody.” How interesting that the presiding judge gave the game away: “The emotional harm that has been caused to this child is enormous [yes - by the law!]. As she matures she will have to come to realise that you are not the nice man she thought you were and hoped you might be.” In other words, as she grows up, she'll absorb the trauma narrative. But the judge is clearly wrong when he implies that Steven is not a 'nice man'. This is shown, not only by his withdrawing from intercourse when the girl said that it hurt, and not only by his thoughtful and caring advice to get the morning after pill just in case, but also by the fact that he wept when he discovered that the girl had self-harmed. Despite his sentence being reduced in the Netherlands, I'm afraid that the Netherlands is not a tolerant country anymore. In a very short space of time it has chosen to exchange its former easygoing sanity for Yank sexual hysterics and the totalitarian suppression of free speech.