Bomb threat maker not criminally responsible
A man who emailed a bomb threat to a government building in downtown Saskatoon has been found not criminally responsible for his actions.
Timothy Steven Harris, 46, was charged with uttering threats after sending an email on May 29, 2013, to Social Services employees saying: “This is not a threat. This is a promise. There is a bomb in the building.”
The community resources building on Second Avenue was evacuated while the Saskatoon police bomb squad searched the building. There was no bomb. At his trial Wednesday in Saskatoon provincial court, Harris testified that when he said there was a bomb, he was referring to himself, and his frustration with the department. He said he was concerned his annual benefits review wasn’t taking place like it usually does, and was scared his benefits would be cut off and he’d end up living on the street, which he’d experienced before.
The reference to the bomb was in the context of the email sent immediately prior to that, he said.
“I referred to myself as being the bomb, said ‘You do this to me year in, year out, you know the circumstances, the conditions of why I’m there, yet you do things intentionally to provoke symptoms, reactions ... to create anxiety,’ ” Harris testified.
Harris has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. In a psychiatric assessment prepared for court, Dr. Mansfield Mela found Harris suffered from a mental disorder at the time of the incident that rendered him incapable of knowing it was wrong.
After reviewing the report and hearing Harris’s testimony, Judge Barry Singer agreed with Mela’s assessment.
“His illness prevented him from rationally evaluating what he was doing,” Singer found.
Harris didn’t know what he wrote was wrong, because, in his mind, he wasn’t making a bomb threat, Singer found.
Harris “showed great promise” early in his adult life, serving three years in the military before he was honourably discharged, then working as a land surveyor, court heard. However, after his diagnosis with schizophrenia, which happened while he was living in B.C., he eventually moved to Saskatoon, where he “feels he was not given sufficient support from social and mental health services,” Singer summarized.
He’s relied on social services for financial support for the past eight years, but it hasn’t gone smoothly.
Things came to a head in 2013, when Harris perceived that social services employees were purposefully trying to “induce his symptoms” through their actions, Singer said.
Harris’s case will now go before the Saskatchewan Review Board, to determine its disposition. The board can determine whether people found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder should be held in custody, live in the community under conditions or be granted an absolute discharge.
Harris’s defence lawyer, Jane Basinski, indicated in court that she will seek an absolute discharge, while Crown prosecutor Jennifer Claxton-Viczko said she will recommend Harris continue to live in the community subject to certain conditions.