Photo: KTW file

A Kamloops man has been ordered to spend three years in prison after propositioning a vulnerable teenager after offering him drugs.

John Albert Van Ryswyk, 58, was sentenced Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court after pleading guilty to one count of invitation to sexual touching.

Court heard the victim was 15 and under the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development when Van Ryswyk first approached him in the summer of 2023 on the sidewalk outside a business on Tranquille Road. Van Ryswyk offered the teen drugs and they used together.

The two kept in touch. The teen told police he found Van Ryswyk “kind of creepy,” but agreed to meet up with him again.

On Aug. 16, 2023, the two met at a bus stop in Brocklehurst and boarded a bus together. On the bus, the driver confronted Van Ryswyk after overhearing a conversation in which he was offering the teen advice about how much to charge for specific sex acts. The conversation was also recorded on the security system inside the bus.

Van Ryswyk took the teen to a Columbia Street motel, where he eventually emerged naked from the shower and grabbed the boy. The teen was able to escape and called for help.

Defence lawyer Melissa Lowe said Van Ryswyk suffers from bipolar disorder and depression, and he was in the midst of an episode on the day in question.

“I’m sorry if I harmed anybody in any way,” Van Ryswyk said in court. “I treated [the teen] like an adult when I should have treated [them] like a 15-year-old.”

B.C. Supreme Court Judge Dennis Hori went along with a joint submission for a three-year prison sentence minus time served, which works out to about 13 months of new time, to be followed by two years of probation.

Van Ryswyk was also ordered to register as a sex offender for 20 years and to submit a sample of his DNA to police for inclusion in a national criminal database.