A Mountie’s deadly delusion
Ruling on criminal responsibility right, but many troubling questions remain
“No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.” — Criminal Code of Canada
Tirth Singh Sehmbi was a man obsessed.
For months, the veteran RCMP constable had been gripped by pathological jealousy, consumed with the paranoid belief that his wife Rajpinder was having an affair.
He hired a private detective to follow her. He filled the house with expensive microphones and hidden cameras, in a vain attempt to capture proof his wife’s imaginary lover was living in a secret compartment in their home.
He paid $1,000 for Rajpinder to have a polygraph test. He even enlisted the help of an autistic neighbour to hide in a closet to spy on his wife. Every time the facts contradicted his delusions, he became more certain of a conspiracy to hide the truth.
When there were some concerns about his work performance, he was sent to see an RCMP psychologist, who approved him as fit for duty. Despite Sehmbi’s increasing mania, despite his paranoid behaviour, no one — not a relative, neighbour, colleague or friend — did anything to get him medical help or keep his family safe.
In the early morning hours of July 10, 2010, Sehmbi’s madness reached its fatal climax. He shot his wife at least 15 times with his service pistol. He then called his family and his police sergeant to tell them what he’d done.
“I shot your mom,” he told his two young sons. “Mimi’s gone.”
He then called his boss, and told him he’d done “about the worst thing” possible. He told his sergeant that he intended to kill himself. His sergeant convinced him to surrender to his custody.
Sehmbi has been at Alberta Hospital, under psychiatric treatment, ever since.
Justice Vitale Ouellette ruled Friday that Sehmbi was not criminally responsible for his actions. Instead of going to prison, Sehmbi will be held indefinitely at Alberta Hospital.
Ouellette heard testimony from five medical experts who offered conflicting testimony about Sehmbi’s mental state. All agreed he was delusional. But they couldn’t agree on the diagnosis.
Canadian law is clear and narrow. Our “not criminally responsible” provision is based directly on McNaughton’s rule, a British common law precedent established in 1843. If you’re so delusional that you don’t know or understand what you’re doing, and you don’t know that it’s wrong, then you’re not criminally responsible. (Vince Li, the Greyhound bus killer, who believed he was fighting demons, is a clear-cut example.)
The evidence here, however, suggests Sehmbi understood exactly what he was doing when he shot and killed his wife. His behaviour and statements afterwards demonstrate that he also knew what he had done was legally and morally wrong.
In that moment, at least, he understood the nature and consequences of his action. Yes, he was in the grip of a deluded belief that his wife was cheating on him. But even if she had been unfaithful, that wouldn’t have been a legal justification to shoot her.
Still, Ouellette made the right ethical decision. Sehmbi may not have been not criminally responsible by the technicalities of Canadian law. But he wasn’t merely a possessive, abusive husband. His moral judgment and his intellectual capacity were compromised by his mental illness, his morbid jealousy. Three years of treatment in hospital, it seems, haven’t improved his physical or mental health.
He still believes his wife had an invisible lover hidden in their house. The court heard his IQ has fallen to 62, far below what is normal. Trying him for second-degree murder or even manslaughter would have served no just end.
Troubling questions remain, however. Could the RCMP have done more to recognize Sehmbi’s deadly paranoid mania, get him competent treatment — and protect his wife?
What better options can we create for women like Rajpinder, who come here as immigrants, without family support, and end up trapped in abusive relationships?
And, more subtly, was Sehmbi’s pathology simply an extreme expression of a possessive misogyny deep in our culture, a view that still sees women as their husbands’ chattel, their fidelity proof of their husband’s manhood?
This tragedy was chilling, the more so because it was preventable. But no one stepped in. No one stepped up.
A woman is dead, a man destroyed, and two boys left without parents. We know who did it. Now we need to ask why.