David Volmer, pastor of ACTS Christian Church in Perth, Australia, pleaded guilty in 2015 to various sex crimes perpetrated against a 13-year-old girl.
In an August 10, 2015 story, Daniel Piotrowski, a reporter for the Daily Mail, wrote:
A teenage girl allegedly abused by a shocking paedophile ring of eight men including her own father was drugged with amyl nitrate and raped by an evangelical preacher.
David Volmer, 41, a married father of two and the South African-born pastor of the ACTS Christian Church in Perth, pleaded guilty to 12 charges relating to the 13-year-old girl’s abuse last month.
Among the offences were three counts each of sexually penetrating a child, indecently dealing with a child under 13 and indecently dealing with a child aged over 13 and under 16.
Court documents obtained by Daily Mail Australia show Mr Volmer also pleaded guilty to three counts of administering amyl nitrate – a ‘stupefying vapour’ – with intent to sexually penetrate and indecently deal with the girl.
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The drug amyl nitrate is sometimes used a sex aid as it relaxes involuntary muscles, according to an Australian Drug Foundation fact sheet.
WA Police announced last month that seven other men, including the unnamed father, had been arrested as part of the ring, who face 503 charges in total.
Daily Mail Australia has also obtained a copy of a semi-autobiographical book Mr Volmer published in 2012, titled The God Standard: Breaking Through The Ordinary.
In the book, Mr Volmer doles out spiritual advice and reflects upon his own spiritual ‘journey’ and an ’emptiness… burning in the depths of my heart’.
He was candid about his marriage difficulties on his path to accepting his ‘God Standard’ and how his relationship with his wife, who he said he viewed at one point as a ‘Christian extremist’, in fact led him to God.
‘The standards she adopted from God meant that I would not be able to listen to the latest music because of its sexual references or its raunchy music videos.
‘Her standard (the God Standard) meant the men’s magazines I had with the semi-naked women on the cover would need to go.
‘It was clear to me that she had taken things way too far and was what I would label a “Christian extremist.
‘Our marriage went through severe difficulty, but my wife continued to pray for me for over five years.’
Mr Volmer said God used his wife as a ‘conduit’ to ‘open my eyes’ and he was terrified she was right – and feared Satan was ‘using’ his thoughts.
‘The void inside me grew bigger each day, and I continued to lash out at my wife.
‘Pride had grabbed such a hold on my life that I could not get myself to confess that what she had was better than what I had.
‘Even worse was that I was terrified of the consequences if she was right! To admit that she was right would mean to admit that I was on my way to hell.
‘Satan used that thought to keep me captured in fear, but the Holy Spirit continued to draw me closer and closer each day.’
In one passage, Mr Volmer also lamented that ‘in a world where sexual immorality has become a way of life through meaningless sexual encounters, homosexuality, and much more, the word of God has been completely abandoned.’
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In a November 5, 2015 article, Piotrowski wrote:
A court has heard horrific details of how a ‘deviant’ Christian pastor and father-of-two drugged and rubbed his genitals on a teenage girl as she laid naked, blindfolded and in tears on a bed – as her father is alleged to have watched on.
David Volmer, 41, from Perth’s northern suburbs, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to 12 offences against a minor including sexual penetration of a child, and stupefying with intent to commit an indictable offence.
In a statement of facts read by the prosecution and not disputed by Volmer, the West Australian District Court heard the pastor’s crimes against the girl – who was aged 12 and 13 at the time – occurred after the victim’s father replied to an advertisement Volmer put on Craiglist promoting his ‘sexual massage services’.
The prosecution said Volmer first met the father and his daughter at a park in Perth’s north in February of March 2014.
In admissions to police, Volmer said as soon as he saw the victim he knew in his heart she was younger than 16, despite the father’s assurances to the contrary.
The court heard days later, Volmer booked a hotel room in the Perth CBD, which both the victim and her father attended.
Volmer and the girl stripped naked and he indecently dealt and assaulted her, rubbing his naked body and genitals against her, according to the prosecution.
When the victim started to cry, Volmer stopped what he was doing and the girl was chastised by her father, the court heard.
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n February 2015, Volmer contacted the father again using the messaging app Kik, the court heard.
He came to the father’s home and fondled the victim as she lay blindfolded to the bed in the home’s master bedroom, before progressing to further sex acts.
Weeks later, he attended the home again, with her father sitting in the corner with a blindfold on. He twice sexually penetrated the girl, the court heard.
On all three occasions, Volmer drugged the girl with amyl nitrate, a drug commonly used as a sex aid which he obtained from a sex shop.
The victim told child protection officers in April 2015 the substance, which she was made to sniff out of a brown bottle, left her feeling ‘woozy and lightheaded’.
After the last incident, Volmer felt guilty and told the victim’s father they should hand themselves in to police, the court heard.
The prosecution said the victim’s father told Volmer he was ‘making a fuss about nothing’.
The priest, then a pastor at the ACTS Christian Church in Carramar and chief executive of Prison Fellowship Western Australia, broke off all contact.
He made full admissions to the offences when he was interviewed by police on June 18 and pleaded guilty to all charges shortly afterwards.
Defence counsel Nick Scerri said Volmer had tried to find the words to say sorry, but felt they were ’empty and powerless’ and could not undo what he did.
‘He wants to say it (sorry) over and over again, shout it from the rooftops,’ he told reporters outside court.
Mr Scerri said Volmer accepted the consequences and hoped the community would forgive him one day.
Judge Herron said it must have been a ‘frustrating and distressing’ experience for the ‘vulnerable and defenceless’ girl.
He added that the ‘degrading and humiliating’ acts were committed for Volmer’s own sexual gratification.
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