Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra board president charged with criminal harassment, again
Bevin van Liempt remanded in custody for more than a week after a second alleged incident prompted an application to revoke bail
A 34-year-old man who is president of the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra's (CSO) board of directors was in Chilliwack provincial court on Monday (Jan. 13, 2025) charged with two counts of criminal harassment and a breach connected to the second charge from Jan. 3, 2025.
Bevin Nathaniel van Liempt was charged with the first count for an alleged incident in Abbotsford on Oct. 5, 2023. He went to trial on that file Nov. 7 and 8, 2024, but before the case could continue in February 2025, he is alleged to have done it again.
Van Liempt is charged with a second count of criminal harassment from an allegation involving another victim in Chilliwack on Jan. 3, 2025. He is also charged with a breach of his release regarding the Abbotsford file and was in court Jan. 13 for an application from Crown counsel to revoke that bail.
Van Liempt's bio on the website for the Chilliwack Children and Youth Choirs says hs is the "schola director at the TLM at Holy Rosary Cathedral, president of the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra, and a teacher of Mediaeval, Renaissance and later periods of music."
"Bevin is currently accepting students for voice and the organ."
Van Liempt is active on social media, including after his second alleged incident of criminal harassment on Jan. 3. On Jan. 5 his Facebook account has a brief post about the Epiphany, the Christian tradition formerly held on Jan. 6 but now recognized on the first Sunday after Jan. 1.
"The vigil of Epiphany.^__^I don't have much to say. Let light enter into the darkness" reads the post.
Several of his posts involve Christian proselytizing, some more cryptic than others to the neutral observer. One recent post from Dec. 28, 2024 discusses the "Feast day of the Holy Innocents" in which he condemns the "peddlers of safety" who mean to control people.
"There is no such thing as absolute control," the post reads. "No such thing as true safety. At any moment, any of our lives can fall to pieces. A sudden random death can hit, completely out of the blue. People have been killed by random events that are utterly unpredictable.Sometimes, we just drop dead. There is no such thing as actual safety."
CSO musical director Paula DeWit who is also involved in the youth choir with van Liempt was in court for the application to revoke bail hearing. Van Liempt does not have a lawyer and is representing himself.
There is a publication ban in place preventing the details from the hearing from being reported. Van Liempt has been remanded at the Surrey Pretrial Centre since Jan. 6, 2025.
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Paul J. Henderson
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