Canada: Alberta pastor sentenced to five years after grooming a congregant he had recruited as co-preacher

Proceedings

1. 2021-01-01 · guilty plea and sentencing

   Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. Brad Dahr, 56, pastor in Vegreville, Alberta from 2016 to 2020, pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation and making child pornography and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment (four years for exploitation, one for the pornography count). He had asked a teenage congregation member, whom he was mentoring through his mental-health outreach program, to co-preach a sermon series with him in 2017; she confided her mental-health struggles and became dependent on him. Over 190,000 messages were exchanged, non-sexual at first, turning sexual in early 2020. The victim's mother told the court he manipulated her daughter into distancing herself from her parents.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• pastoral counselling role exploited via a mental-health outreach program he ran for young adults
• recruited the teenage victim as a co-preacher, deepening dependence on him
• escalating volume of private messaging (190,000+ messages) building isolation from her parents