Male nurse who raped female co-worker at Chilliwack high school asks BC Court of Appeal to overturn conviction based on missing surveillance video
Ruppreet Singh Pawar also fired several lawyers, lied about needing a translator, even tried a cultural defence for rape
March 17, 2026
*Warning: This story deals with sexual assault and suicide and could be disturbing to some readers.
A male psychiatric nurse convicted of raping a female co-worker in Chilliwack in 2018 says the trial judge misunderstood certain witness statements, and ignored the importance of a lost surveillance video.
Crown counsel, on the other hand, defended Judge Andrea Ormiston’s decision arguing that she may have interpreted some evidence differently, and that any errors made by police were minor and harmless.
Ruppreet Singh Pawar was convicted of sexual assault after years of intentionally delaying court proceedings by firing multiple lawyers, faking language barriers, even arguing that as an immigrant to Canada from India, the government should take some blame for not educating newcomers that rape isn’t OK.
“Mr. Pawar has spent most of his adult life in Canada,” Judge Ormiston said in her 2023 decision. “He has been educated and employed in this country, working in a hands-on, caring profession with the public.
“I agree there is a need to send a strong message that women cannot be objectified, humiliated and injured, but that message is to be sent to Mr. Pawar, and to any other person who would contemplate committing this kind of offence.”
Pawar was highly educated as a psychiatric nurse looking to get direction from the victim N.M. before he started work on the night shift at the residential care home in Abbotsford where they worked. In a long text exchange it was clear he manipulated her willingness to help him into meeting in the middle of the night, not at Tim Hortons or other locations she suggested, in the end driving in his pickup truck to Portage Avenue behind the sports field at Chilliwack Secondary School in the early hours of July 18, 2018.
It was there on the bleachers that Pawar escalated from kissing N.M. against her will to violent intercourse. Judge Ormiston could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that he planned the assault as it was carried out, but he clearly made decisions to violate her after they met.
Pawar raped her, “violated her sexual integrity,” in a way that had a significant impact on her well beyond the physical injuries suffered.
“She suffered emotional and financial consequences,” Judge Ormiston said in her original decision, pointing to the fact that she was unable to work because of the trauma, and the fact that the care home did not support her.
This reporter spoke with N.M. numerous times, helping her navigate the injustice of Pawar’s intentional delays, deceptions, malicious re-victimization of her in a way that had a profound and fatal psychological impact.
“The cumulative impact was nothing short of devastating,” Judge Ormiston said at Pawar’s sentencing hearing after all his delaying finally was ended on Nov. 17, 2023.
That devastation was an allusion to the fact that N.M. was not present at the sentencing hearing because she took her own life in between the conviction on June 29, 2023, and Nov. 17 at the sentencing.
Not only did Pawar’s lawyer argue that his culpability should be lessened because he didn’t understand rape wasn’t OK, he also complained that there were collateral consequences because he eventually lost his job at the care home.
“This should be a a foreseeable consequence of committing an offence such as sexual assault,” Judge Ormiston found.
As an intelligent and highly educated person, she found his moral blameworthiness “enormously high” as he lured her into a vulnerable position on the ruse that he needed her help and exploited her trust.
Unrepentant rapist
Still refusing to accept justice for sexually assaulting a woman who trusted him, traumatizing her into life-altering circumstances such that she took her own life, Pawar boldly decided to appeal, asking the BC Court of Appeal to overturn the conviction or at least order a new trial.
Pawar’s counsel asked the court to overturn the conviction claiming the judge erred when dealing with a key piece of evidence: surveillance video.
The hearing was held in Vancouver on Feb. 7, 2026, the audio of which was accessed by Something Worth Reading.
The surveillance video in questions was from Chilliwack Secondary School. The video was seen by an officer and another witness, but it was not preserved and later disappeared.
Another area of appeal involved a conversation Pawar had with co-workers after the rape allegation that Crown argued showed consciousness of guilt, essentially that he lied to them. The argument Pawar’s lawyer made was that even an out-of-court denial by an accused could raise reasonable doubt.
As for the video, a police officer viewed the video and said he saw a white pickup truck arrive near the bleachers on Portage Avenue. The trucked stayed there for a while, nobody got out of the truck, then the truck left.
If that was accurate, it could have contradicted N.M’s account that they parked, got out, went to the bleachers where the assault happened.
Issues arose at trial about whether the officer saw thumbnail images or saw the actual video in full, questions about the time stamp, and discrepancy over whether the camera in question was motion-activated or continuous.
At trial, Pawar’s lawyer argued the lost video should lead to a stay of proceedings (case dismissed) because: police failed to preserve potentially important evidence, which undermines trial fairness.
Judge Ormiston, however, agreed there was a Charter breach (failure to preserve evidence), but she ruled it was inadvertent or negligent, not misconduct, and the lost video might have helped either side or neither.
She convicted Pawar.
At the Appeal Court hearing, Crown’s position was that the judge did not materially misapprehend the evidence, and at most there were minor factual errors.
Any mistakes were not central to the conviction. In appellate law language, even if errors occurred, they did not meet the threshold of “material misapprehension of evidence.”
Essentially, the Appeal Court Justices have to decide if Judge Ormiston misunderstood the co-worker testimony evidence and/or did the loss of surveillance video undermine trial fairness.
If so, the most likely decision would be a new trial. Less likely the conviction could be overturned. If not, the conviction stands.
Visit Something Worth Reading for an update when a decision is rendered.
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Paul J. Henderson
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