Man not criminally responsible for attack on neighbours

Paranoid delusions of an imaginary antagonist led a Calgary man to wire shut his neighbours’ door and douse it in gasoline, a judge said Wednesday.

In finding Charles Allan not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder, Judge Lloyd Robertson accepted evidence that Allan did not know what he was doing was wrong when he endangered the women who lived next door to him.

Robertson noted Allan, 52, falsely believed the women were harbouring a man named Snow Brown, who the offender believed wanted to physically harm him and steal his money.

“His paranoid delusions had clearly troubled Mr. Allan for some time,” Robertson said.

“He was under the delusional belief that a fictitious man named Snow Brown was … in that apartment,” the judge said.

“Of course, there was no Snow Brown and there never has been.”

The judge agreed with Crown prosecutor Tara Wells and defence lawyer Alya Nazarali that Allan’s fate should now be left to an Alberta Review Board panel, which could result in his further incarceration in a secure hospital setting. The panel will hear his case within 90 days.

Nazarali had opposed Wells’ application to have Allan found not criminally responsible considering he had already served the equivalent of nearly 18 months of so-called dead time.

Robertson found Allan guilty last Oct. 22 of four charges, including mischief endangering life and two counts of unlawful confinement.

The judge determined Allan had wired shut the door to his neighbours’ apartment, trapping the female occupants inside, and doused it with gasoline “in an effort to trap or burn Mr. Snow Brown.”

He also ruled the offender had an improperly stored firearm, which he kept for protection from his imaginary adversary.

Following the decision, the Crown sought a psychiatric assessment of Allan’s mental health to determine if he was not criminally responsible at the time he committed the offences.

Dr. Yuri Metelitsa diagnosed Allan with an unspecified schizophrenic spectrum disorder that he has suffered from for years.

Metelitsa said at the time of the June 15 attack on his neighbours’ residence, Allan appeared to be suffering auditory hallucinations, as one witness reported him talking to an imaginary person.

Metelitsa said Allan was incapable of knowing what he was doing was wrong and could not appreciate the nature and quality of his actions, the two ways in which an individual can be found not criminally responsible.