COKE ADDICT STOLE FROM CHURCH

Congregation Felt Betrayed By 'Charming' Treasurer

To the many widows and pensioners at St. John the Evangelist church in
North Vancouver, Curtis Bishop was "the darling of the community."

Then they found out he'd stolen $43,000 of the Anglican church's funds
and spent it on cocaine.

"The first few years that he was here, he was probably the most
invited person in the community," said Rev. Dan Meakes.

"Everyone would like to take him home for supper. He got around into
many, many homes.

"Particularly some of the older women in the church took him under
their wing."

Bishop, now 42 and just sentenced to seven months in prison, arrived
at the small church in the mid-'90s.

Dark-haired, of average height and build, he was charming and drew out
the protective nature in members of the congregation, Meakes said.

"He was the darling of the community, loved by all."

Bishop had useful skills. He came from a family that owned an
accounting firm in Newfoundland, and he had taken a year-long
accounting course. He became the volunteer treasurer for the church.

"He was always there. He was super-dependable. He was very friendly
and charming and outgoing and very bright," recalled former church
warden Kelly Maxwell.

Over the course of 14 months in 1998 and 1999, Bishop made out at
least 16 cheques to himself, forging the required second signature,
that of Maxwell.

Bishop's thefts were discovered after he failed to attend an annual
meeting to deliver his treasurer's report. Church officials began
looking over the books and opened a bank statement.

"There was a cheque to him for $5,000, which never in a million years
should happen, and my signature forged on it," Maxwell said.

The congregation felt deeply betrayed, Meakes said.

"To have been really caring toward Curtis, and then to have him run
off with the money, was quite damaging," the priest said.

"It really challenges your faith in humanity."

The money he stole had come from the largely low-income
parishioners.

"Their gifts are pretty significant, and hard-come-by," Meakes
said.

Once Bishop's thefts were revealed, gifts to church coffers dropped by
about 20 per cent for two years, Meakes said.

A Canada-wide warrant was issued for Bishop's arrest, but for nearly
seven years he stayed under the police radar. Four months ago, he was
picked up in Ontario.

When Bishop was sentenced last week in North Vancouver Provincial
Court, his lawyer told Judge Carol Baird Ellan that Bishop stole the
money to support a $200-a-day cocaine habit, and that since he fled
B.C., he's lived on the streets of Ottawa, sleeping on park benches
and eating from garbage cans.

At his sentencing, Bishop apologized to the congregation as well as to
Maxwell.

"I really wish that he has a better life going forward from here,"
Maxwell said. "You really hate to see people throw their lives away."

Now, St. John the Evangelist has tightened security around
finances.

"It's hard to move a piece of paper without two or three people
knowing about it," Meakes said.

The hurt feelings and sense of betrayal Bishop left in his wake have
not soured into bitterness, the priest said.

Just before Meakes went to Bishop's sentencing, a member of the
congregation said, "'If you get a chance to talk to Curtis, tell him
we wish him well,'" Meakes said.

"These are very average people, who met a very extraordinary person,"
he said. "Some of them lost, for a while, their hope for humanity."

But with Bishop finally turning up to face justice and pleading guilty
to his crime, the community has been able to move on.

"The good ending," said Meakes, "is that hope is restored."