• Top Stories of 2025 • Fraser Valley music teacher’s criminal harassment case dragged out by delays, breaches, Charter applications & lawsuits against his victims’ mothers

Number 8 on the list, convicted of criminal harassment, Bevin van Liempt spent more than 200 days at Surrey Pretrial in 2025, released on bail for fourth time this year just a week before Christmas

›› Something Worth Reading, the only truly local news outlet in the Fraser Valley, looks at the 10 most read stories of 2025 as we wrap up our first year sharing nearly 400 stories with 300,000 unique users ‹‹

The day after Christmas it will be exactly 10 months since Bevin van Liempt pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal harassment for sending persistent unwanted messages and emails to two of teenage music students after being told to stop.

With the guilty pleas, a sentencing hearing was then scheduled in March at which time the entire case could have ended. He likely would have received a jail sentence of time served followed by probation since he had already spent 50 days in pre-trial custody for non-violent offences.

His victims and their mothers were relieved it was over and they could begin to heal from the fear and anxiety his behaviour caused. Members of the Fraser Valley classical music community were relieved it was over. Guilty pleas and a subsequent sentence should have been the end of it.

Van Liempt, however, had other ideas. He shifted gears by declining to accept his already admitted guilt, refusing to adhere to court orders while released on bail, and ratcheting the whole matter up causing exponentially more anxiety by filing civil lawsuits against the mothers of his two victims, staff at the school from which he was fired, and two people indirectly connected to him from the music community who attended court proceedings.

It is somewhat surprising on the face of it to see a story about criminal harassment make the top 10 most-read stories. While it is terrible and anxiety-inducing for victims, it is a non-violent criminal offence. But after the first reporting of the case when he was charged a second time, while he was listed as the president of the board of directors for the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra, there was a deluge of response from the classical music community in the Fraser Valley. More than two dozen people sent me emails and DMs thanking me for covering the case, from people who were shocked to hear about the story, but also from several others who are familiar with these folks and who weren’t surprised at all.

It ain’t over

I’m told by some of those who van Liempt has filed defamation lawsuits against that he also names me on one of them, although as of this writing (Dec. 24, 2025) he has not yet served me papers, a legal requirement.

In fact, while van Liempt was in custody, he or his mother Paula DeWit hired process servers to track down the mothers of his victims and others at their homes, places of work, school, one person was even served at a music concert. They had to use process servers because van Liempt has no-contact orders for the victims and their mothers and others at the school, at least one of whom testified at his trial. Someone who has been served shared information from one affidavit filed on behalf of van Liempt that contains multiple statements that are complete lies claiming that he met me, I acknowledged who I was, and he handed me papers at an address (that is nowhere near where I live). All nonsense, which, I have learned, is perjury, which is a serious criminal code offence.

According to those who have been served with notices of civil claim by van Liempt, he claims that several people are in a conspiracy to ruin his life. Why is unclear. His main claim about what constitutes defamation are implications or anecdotal comments comparing this case to sexual harassment or that his communications represent signs of wanting a romantic connection with the girls.

“I hope you feel every bit the disgusting pervert you are,” van Liempt’s Chilliwack victim wrote in a final missive to him via email before he continued to contact against her stated wishes. 

“I hope the truth about you gets out and mothers know to keep their daughters far away from scum like you.”

It’s unclear how van Liempt considers his criminal harassment to not be about attempted romantic relationships with teenage girls based on the comments from the one victim above. He asked the girls out on dates. Speaking to me outside the courthouse in March, he compared himself to Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio because of a desire to date girls much younger than him.

“There is a huge stigma with big age gaps,” he said when I asked him why he thought parents and teachers responded the way they did. “Right now they are, you know, not popular. There is an element of prejudice. That's a real thing, right? Like if you look at Leonardo DiCaprio, he's got his young girlfriends, lots of people have opinions, that's totally inappropriate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is a worry that people have in society.”

The case is, of course, not about age gaps considering the age of consent is 16. The girls were older than that. The cases are simply about unwanted communications rising to the level of criminal.

Dates of Bevin van Liempt’s time in and out of the Surrey Pretrial Centre in 2025

• January 6 - Arrested: Mid-trial for the Abbotsford victim, he was arrested for repeatedly sending messages to a second girl, the Chilliwack victim, despite orders to stop.
• February 26 - Released on bail to live with his mother, Paula DeWit.
• March 1 - Arrested: Shortly after he posted a 40-minute selfie video discussing elements of the case protected by publication ban. 
• March 13 - Released on bail to live with his mother.
• June 5 - Arrested for contacting a third female via social media and for sharing names of the first two with a reporter, both violations of his release conditions.
• October 20 - Released on bail to live with his mother.
• October 31 - Arrested for contacting Chilliwack victim via social media on Oct. 29.
• December 17 - Released on bail to live with his mother.

Why the interest?

Overall I can see why the story reached the readership it did. Beyond the shock and real-world hurt and anxiety the offences caused and continue to cause, the case has all the psychological drama of a Hollywood movie, one that is not over yet.

After his release on bail Dec. 17, he started filing more documents at the courthouse for his civil claims. How far those go is unclear but we won’t know until 2026. As for his criminal convictions and sentencing, he has a next court date in January at which he may still be making several Charter challenges after which, assuming they fail, will finally be a sentencing hearing.

Also in 2026, I have an interview scheduled with Mandi Gray, an assistant professor at Trent University in criminology whose recent book Suing for Silence is, according to one description, “a groundbreaking examination of how abusive men use defamation lawsuits as a weapon against anyone who attempts to hold them accountable.“

Her focus is specifically on gender-based violence, sexual abuse and rape, which van Liempt is in no way charged with or accused of ever committing. But the parallels are there. In Suing for Silence, Gray argues that lawsuits against victims, relatives of victims, witnesses, the media, should be recognized as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) with the purpose not of seeking any form of justice but merely “to intimidate, silence, and drain the financial and emotional resources of those who speak out.” 

Both Ontario and B.C. have relatively recent anti-SLAPP legislation to more easily shut down vexatious, malicious and frivolous lawsuits such as van Liempt’s, which is meant to punish and silence, to turn the offender into a victim. 

Anti-SLAPP laws have rarely been used, although there is a local example. Former school trustee Barry Neufeld filed a defamation lawsuit against then BCTF president Glen Hansman when the latter called some of the things Neufeld said “bigoted, transphobic, and hateful.”

A B.C. Supreme Court justice dismissed the suit under anti-SLAPP legislation, which in B.C. is called the Protection of Public Participation Act. It was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where the dismissal was upheld. 

Reporting criminal harassment to police is not defamation. Talking about an individual committing criminal harassment is not defamation. And to call it defamation when a court-accredited journalist or anyone else reports publicly on criminal cases in B.C.’s court system, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so ignorant and a maddening waste of time.

There have been more than a dozen articles written about this case, this specific one from Oct. 3 was the story that was the eighth most read on Something Worth Reading in 2025: Patience of Job: Abbotsford judge calmly navigates several personality disorders of a music teacher convicted of criminal harassment of girls 

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Paul J. Henderson
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