Skip to content

Swirl face pedophile detained

A Maple Ridge man who spent five years in a Thai prison for molesting children will remain in custody while awaiting trial on 10 new charges

A Maple Ridge man who spent five years in a Thai prison for molesting children will remain in custody while awaiting trial on 10 new charges.

A provincial court judge refused to release Christopher Paul Neil on bail Thursday following a three-hour-long hearing in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court.

Details presented during the bail hearing can’t be revealed due to a publication ban.

Crown was seeking a detention order for Neil, which was granted by the judge.

Neil was the subject of an international manhunt in 2007 after Interpol unscrambled digitally swirled images of him engaging in sexual acts with young boys from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, ranging in age from six to 16.

The 39-year-old returned to Canada in 2012 after serving time in a Bangkok prison.

Neil now faces five new charges for sexual touching, invitation to sexual touching and production of child porn related to incidents in 2003 that took place in Cambodia.

He is also accused of possessing child porn in 2007 while in Maple Ridge, as well as possessing and viewing child porn in Vancouver last year.

Neil was placed under an 18-month peace bond when he returned to Canada in October 2012 as police believed he was a risk to public safety. The peace bond prohibited Neil from accessing the Internet via a computer or phone.

Neil has since breached those conditions, pleading guilty last October to accessing the Internet via a laptop computer.

Neil grew up in Maple Ridge, but has no fixed address at the moment. His family still lives in the community.

Neil attended the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission from 1995 to 1999 and received a B.C. independent teaching certificate in 2000.

He also volunteered at St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Maple Ridge in 2000 and 2001 and was a substitute teacher at Arch Bishop Carney in Port Coquitlam in 2007.