FILE PHOTO - Former Interior Health chief medical health officer Dr. Albert de Villiers.
Image Credit: Submitted/Interior Health
January 12, 2023 - 10:43 AM
The trial of Interior Health's former chief medical health officer accused of child sexual assault has wrapped up in Alberta, but it will be another month before a judge decides his fate.
On the last day of a three-day trial in Grand Prairie today, Jan. 12, Crown prosecutors called Dr. Albert Stefanus de Villiers defence "inconsistent" and based on "frail evidence."
The court heard de Villiers hosted the young victim at his home on multiple occasions and his parents friends of de Villiers.
The charges stemmed from multiple assaults alleged to have taken place between June 15, 2018, and July 31, 2020, but lawyers on each side focused much of their closing arguments on one night.
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The victim was ten years old at the time and he alleged de Villiers showed him pornography and then was molested by de Villiers while he was there for a sleepover.
Defence lawyer Chris Millsap told the court it's possible the victim watched pornography on his own and fabricated the story out of shame and guilt.
The victim told his parents about the pornography and being sexually assaulted by de Villiers before eventually speaking with RCMP.
The court also heard a voicemail de Villiers left for the victim's parents, in which he apologized for doing something wrong, later claiming in court it was because he "overstepped" and became a father-figure for the victim, not because he assaulted him.
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The Crown said that version is "unbelievable" because he was apologizing for a specific error, and he only gave that version in court, not when he spoke to police just 36 hours after leaving the voicemail.
"It has never happened before and I cannot get over it. It will not happen with anyone else again," he said as part of the June 7, 2021, voicemail read to the court by the prosecution.
de Villiers was arrested,June 8, 2021, in Kelowna where he had been working as Interior Health's chief medical health officer since August 2020.
Before moving to B.C., he was working for Alberta Health's north zone based in Grande Prairie.
Alberta Court of King's Bench Justice Shaina Leonard said she would take time to review the evidence before giving her decision on Feb. 7.
de Villiers will return to Kelowna and the court gave him permission to attend the proceedings virtually, so if convicted, sentencing will likely come at later date.
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