Back in Jail: Convicted harasser arrested while awaiting sentencing for livestreaming about his victims on Facebook

Bevin van Liempt, a music teacher who criminally harassed underage girls, posts video offering no insight into the harms caused, claims victim status for himself

If Bevin van Liempt hadn't been arrested and brought to jail Saturday, three days after he was released from court pending his sentencing, those watching his case closely, including his victims, might have been shocked.

But he was arrested after posting a 40-minute selfie video in which he showed a disregard for his victims, for their family members and others who have stood up for them, as well as a gross misunderstanding of why his behaviour got him into trouble.

Back on Wednesday (Feb. 26, 2025), van Liempt was due in provincial court in Abbotsford for the continuation of his trial for the criminal harassment of a 17-year-old music student. The trial began back in November an continued in February. Van Liempt is representing himself without legal counsel.

That day started with the victim waiting for cross-examination in the hallway in Abbotsford accompanied by a victim services worker. But van Liempt refused to come to court. Judge Paul Sandhu wasn't having it, and he ordered the B.C. Sheriff Service to "extract" van Liempt from the Surrey Pretrial Centre and haul him to court.

That afternoon when brought to court, van Liempt suddenly pleaded guilty to both the Abbotsford criminal harassment charge and a criminal harassment charge in Chilliwack of another teenage girl. That harassment took place mid-trial while he was out on bail living with his mother, Paula DeWit, conductor and principle figure in the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra where van Liempt was the president up until his replacement after the criminal charge in Chilliwack.

After the convictions were entered on Feb. 26, van Liempt was released and allowed to go live back with his mother, which is where the index Chilliwack offence occurred and the breach. Crown counsel Jim Barbour did not ask for any further bail conditions beyond the ones from November that were breached in January. So he was not given a restriction on the consumption of alcohol nor any sort of ban on electronic devices or accessing the internet.

At 9:49 p.m. the day he was released, Feb. 26, van Liempt made a long post on his Facebook page starting with, "I'm back! There is currently an absolute boatload of invective floating around. I am happy to meet with anyone and everyone who wants to ask questions and hear my side of the story."

I asked him if he cared to comment on how he can reconcile being an "authentic Christian," as he posted, with the trauma inflicted on two teenage victims of criminal harassment, young girls he has not apologized to nor even acknowledged they are victims.

He replied that the two "young ladies in question are persons who are very important to me, dear friends, and I have no doubt whatsoever that they are entirely aware of the high esteem in which I hold them."

Then, turning the nature of the case on it's head, he portrayed a reality where his predicament in jail and facing criminal charges was because of the victims. Yet he holds no grudge against them.

"I contend they have done nothing wrong," he wrote. "I likewise have no doubt whatsoever that they know that I would never knowingly or willingly harm either.

"They are both entirely lovely humans, with whom I have no grievance."

I pressed him, wondering why a man convicted of criminal harassment needed to absolve his victims of wrongdoing. He declined to admit any guilt or that he did anything wrong. In fact, it's the opposite. Van Liempt is painting himself to be a hero, someone out to protect these vulnerable teenage girls from the court, from the police, from some in the community that has turned on him, even from their own families.

"I stuck up for my Abbotsford complainant."

In our exchange, van Liempt insisted the girls were forced to make the complaints.

"Who is making them do this to you?" I asked him.

"I strongly urge you to make your own enquiries to both Crown and the APD," he replied. "For example, you might find text exchanges, wherein Miss Abbotsford is told she 'has to' complain. And she indicates that she has no idea how to formulate that complaint, and is directly instructed on how to draft it....

"Moreover, go ask her why she fears for her safety after being in repeated receipt of my assurance that I will not do a single thing without her permission, which she will confirm."

That was that, until Saturday (March 1, 2025), when several people who have been watching his behaviours with horror noticed that van Liempt started Livestreaming on his Facebook page.

"I’m going to be something that a lot of people have advised me not to be: Candid and vulnerable."

So began 40-plus minutes of painting himself out to be the victim. In the video he mythologizes about everyone else's intentions and thoughts and beliefs, he self-aggrandizes his position as a beloved hero of some kind to young women who were undergoing personal struggles.

He refers to them as Miss Abbotsford and Miss Chilliwack. He also paints himself out to be both victim of others and a martyr in some noble cause of protection. He also says in the video that Miss Abbotsford told him to stop contacting her, but he didn't believe it was really her, which is likely the main reason he was charged. "No" didn't mean "no" to him.

Several of the parts of his selfie video on March 1 outlined much of what came up in the Abbotsford case and in the hearing on Jan. 14 in Chilliwack to revoke his bail. Despite the guilty pleas in court on Feb. 26, and despite a March 12 date to schedule sentencing, van Liempt goes over details in the video of what he says happened. What the police, Crown and the judge see as criminal harassment, van Liempt sees as him standing up for a girl being manipulated on all sides.

"After been abandoned wholesale by so many of my neighbours and friends and my own wife, there was no way I was ever going to do that to her," he says in the video. "Because abandonment is horrible. It’s awful."

He adds that he "will happily suffer on behalf of others," and that he is "practised in suffering."

He explains in the video about an email he sent to her and to others, including, he says, someone investigating his behaviour telling them all that she was right and everyone else was wrong and that he didn't approve of what they were doing and "that they had fucked everything up." He claims he was looking out for this girl against all these people who seem out to get him, and out to turn her against him.

"I wanted to make sure that she had a happy ending,"

The video then goes on to explain the circumstances of the breach charge, which came as a result of the criminal harassment of the Chilliwack victim. While in the middle of a trial for the Abbotsford case, the 34-year-old explained on video on his own Facebook page about how he decided to ask another girl out to dinner. Somehow, this rejection baffled him as did her strong "no" response. He also explains that she was upset about the offer.

"I got an email back," he said. "Again, so wildly out of character. Aggressive, caustic, threatening, hateful and contained things that I thought were inexplicable." 

But he sent her more emails, soon after which he was arrested for criminal harassment for a second time. In the video, he heavily downplays what he did to warrant that charge that he pleaded guilty to, calling his plea simply "procedural." He said that all he did was ask her out on a date and send her eight emails.

He repeated again and again that he is baffled by the fears expressed by his victims even though he repeatedly told Miss Abbotsford, "I wasn't going to do anything unless she gave me her 'yes,' which I think is critical."

Near the end of the video is a reference to another young girl, long passed and the victim of a triple homicide in Chilliwack a decade ago.

“I am in so much pain. So much pain. It’s silly," he said, adding that despite this pain, he has to stick up for people who need his help, people who feel abandoned.

"I don't want another dead friend."

A seemingly cryptic comment that he has said more than once, van Liempt is referring to Emily Janzen, a promising and talented young singer who was murdered by her father in Chilliwack in May 2015. Randy Janzen also murdered Emily's mother Laurel, his own sister Shelly, all before setting the family home on fire and killing himself.

“I don’t want another dead friend, I haven’t even talked about it, ya, I have a dead friend. I have a girl who came to me for protection when I was 19 and I wasn’t able to protect her. She was killed. I don’t want to ever do anything like that again because I loved that girl too. She was lovely. She was amazing. Lots of people know who she is."

Two-minute excerpt from the video van Liempt livestreamed and posted on Facebook on March 1, 2025

He then expressed hope that if these situations happen again "that I would be brave enough to stick up for those people once more."

He expressed bafflement at the "sheer scale" this has come to "over emails," that all could have been resolved if his Abbotsford victim simply agreed to his demand to send a video clip proving she didn't want to hear from him.

“It’s so disappointing to see this from my Christian friends. Some of you are amazing… some of you are wonderful. I wont point fingers at any individual. That’s not what Christ taught. So here I am.” 

Van Liempt was arrested Saturday and charged with a new breach connected to the Chilliwack charge. He is scheduled to make a video appearance in Abbotsford on Tuesday morning.

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