A disgraced doctor who headed B.C.’s Interior Health COVID-19 response — and was later found guilty of child sex offences — has been granted parole just 16 months into his nearly 6-year prison sentence.
As previously reported by True North, Albert Stefanus de Villiers — the former chief medical officer of B.C.’s Interior Health organization — was arrested, charged, and sentenced in 2023 for sexually abusing a seven-year-old boy.
Less than two years after being sentenced, de Villiers was already granted permission to leave the prison and begin living at a halfway home.
In the six months he spent living at the halfway home, at an undisclosed location, de Villiers was given “numerous weekend passes” to spend at his family’s home, according to the Parole Board of Canada.
A psychologist dedicated to his case opined that de Villiers’ risk to re-offend was “generally very low,” and if he had not been provided unsupervised access to children, his risk “would be even lower.”
The Parole Board additionally noted that there are “no reported concerns by local RCMP” about his release and that there were no reported concerns about de Villiers’ behaviour while on day parole.
Additional information cited by the Parole Board in its decision included “no criminal history” prior to the offences de Villiers was convicted of in 2023.
Records show, however, that de Villiers was also charged with a number of other child sex crimes against another alleged victim, which allegedly occurred between January 2017 and December 2019 in Alberta.
Rather than go to trial, the Crown let de Villiers enter into a two-year peace bond in connection with those allegations.