Child sex charges against Interior Health’s former top doctor, convicted for child sex offences earlier this year, have been withdrawn after he entered into a two-year peace bond in September.
Dr. Albert de Villiers was charged with voyeurism, making explicit material available to a child and an invitation to sexual touching for incidents that allegedly took place between January 2017 and December 2019. Details of the allegations were sealed under a publication ban.
A representative of the Alberta courts said a $2,000 peace bond was issued Sept. 13 in Grande Prairie, Alta. It comes with conditions, including no contact with the victims or their families and no use of alcohol or drugs.
A peace bond is a protection order made by a court under Section 810 of the Criminal Code. It is used where a defendant appears likely to commit a criminal offence, but there are no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has actually been committed.
In these situations, a person can obtain a peace bond against the defendant from the court and the court may impose specific conditions that are designed to prevent the defendant from committing harm to the person, their spouse or common-law partner or their child, or from committing damage to their property.
With the peace bond in place, the charges against de Villiers were withdrawn.
De Villiers was, however, already convicted of charges of sexual assault and sexual interference on a different matter earlier in the year.
In video testimony recorded in 2021, when the allegations were made to police, a young boy said that on more than one occasion he slept over at de Villiers’ home and was shown nudity on a tablet. He said he’d been asked to touch de Villiers sexually and he also was touched sexually.
De Villiers was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
De Villiers was the north zone lead medical health officer with Alberta Health Services, based in Grande Prairie, at the time of the offences, according to his LinkedIn page. He spent 16 years in that position, from January 2004 to July 2020, before leaving his post.
He took over as chief medical health officer of Interior Health in August 2020.
Previously, he worked out of Grande Prairie as the lead medical health officer with Alberta’s north zone. He originally came to Canada from South Africa.
He was fired from Interior Health upon his conviction.