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Chilliwack church pastor’s appeal of child porn conviction dismissed by B.C. Court of Appeal

John Vermeer called a ‘pedophile’ caught with images of ‘offensive, harmful and depraved’ child abuse
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Former Main Street Church executive pastor John Vermeer was convicted of downloading and possessing “some of the most offensive, harmful and depraved forms” of child pornography and sentenced to 14 months jail in October 2021. His appeal of that conviction was dismissed on May 18, 2023. (Facebook file photo)

The former Main Street Church pastor convicted of downloading and possessing child pornography had his appeal of that conviction dismissed by the B.C. Court of Appeal in a decision rendered Thursday (May 18).

Johannes (John) Vermeer was convicted of two counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of accessing child pornography from dates in 2010 and 2015.

Vermeer was downloading and storing “some of the most offensive, harmful and depraved forms of abuse on children” on two computers used exclusively by Vermeer at the church, according to Judge Andrea Ormiston in her decision in provincial court on Oct. 13, 2021.

He was sentenced to 14 months jail followed by 18 months probation. He was also placed on the sex offender registry for 10 years.

RELATED: Chilliwack church pastor sentenced to 14 months jail in child porn case

“The fact that the victims are unknown to Mr. Vermeer and the court do not make their suffering any less,” Judge Ormiston said in reading her decision.

An aggravating factor at sentencing is that Vermeer appears to have no insight into his criminal behaviour, and in fact he had letters of support from friends “that cannot accept that these offences occurred.”

Despite that sentence a year-and-a-half ago, Vermeer has served no time. He was out on bail awaiting the appeal hearing, which was held on April 3, 2023.

The appeal was based on three arguments that the judge made errors in law. Firstly, his lawyer Reza Mansoori-Dara argued that Judge Ormiston should have held a voir dire (a hearing within a trial) to determine the admissibility of the computer evidence, and that not doing so did not follow the “best evidence rule” in the Canada Evidence Act.

In dismissing this, writing on behalf of the court, Justice Mary Newbury wrote that while Judge Ormiston did not hold a voir dire to assess the evidence, she did repeatedly assess whether the computer-based evidence was reliable.

“In these circumstances, it is difficult to accept the notion that the appellant may have been deprived of some important procedural protection or that one or more voir dires would have led the trial judge to exclude any particular evidence that was admitted.”

The second ground for appeal was that the judge relied upon hearsay evidence in finding Vermeer guilty. Here Vermeer argument that one police officer witness testified about file titles indicative of child pornography without seeing the child pornography, so that was hearsay.

But officers did see some of the material that had not already been deleted by Vermeer. And Justice Newbury wrote that it would be ironic for Vermeer to benefit from arguing against the necessity of relying on the file names as proof of them containing child pornography.

She added: “It would be nonsensical for titles suggestive of child pornography to be used if users were to be consistently disappointed to find something else.”

This ground of appeal was also dismissed.

Thirdly, Vermeer argued that the trial judge made errors in finding his credibility lacking and not accepting his evidence. One example was Vermeer’s use of a software program called Reg.Clinic, which is used to delete files but he claimed was only used to speed up his computer.

An expert RCMP witness testified that the program could automatically delete “certain files” on the computer when it was running, but “normal files,” such as images or videos, could only be deleted by a user intentionally doing so.

“I am not persuaded that the trial judge misapprehended any evidence in any material way or that she ‘speculated’ or relied on matters not raised by counsel,” Justice Newbury concluded. “There was evidence to support the conclusions she reached and no particular error of law or fact has been shown on her part.”

In the end, the case was a circumstantial one that included the fact that the IT company that found the child porn examined 20 computers belonging to the church network but only found child pornography on two: Vermeer’s desktop and his former laptop.

“The Crown evidence … amply demonstrates that Mr. Vermeer downloaded and accessed the child pornography found in this investigation,” Judge Ormiston concluded in her finding of guilt, a paragraph the appeals court quoted in its decision. “Based on the evidence I accept, this is the only reasonable conclusion.”

While Vermeer only received a sentence of 14 months, at his sentencing hearing Crown counsel Teresa Mitchell-Banks argued a much more serious sentence was in order, as there is no practical difference between offenders who access and view child pornography and the pedophiles and abusers who create the illegal images and videos.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that people who watch online child pornography are online pedophiles,” Mitchell-Banks said. “He is an online predator.”

It’s unclear if Vermeer will now turn himself in to serve his sentence or be allowed to stay out on bail pending his only final option, an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

READ MORE: OPINION: Chilliwack pastor convicted of possession of ‘depraved’ child porn appeals conviction


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