Details of toronto van attacker’s psych report revealed
Aprivate history of the Toronto van attack driver’s strange fetishes, schoolboy crushes, how he relieves sexual frustration and a newfound interest in religion form part of a report produced by psychiatrists examining him prior to his trial for mass murder.
Alek Minassian also told doctors he drew his inspiration for using a van as a weapon from recent terrorist attacks.
Minassian, 28, said he had his first crush on a girl in Grade 7, when he was about 11 years old. The focus of his schoolboy interest was a fellow pupil, he told psychiatrists during an extensive court-ordered examination to assess his mental state.
He also recalled having a crush on a girl in a high school biology class. He chronicled passing encounters with her, including a memorable moment when she said hello to him.
The evolution of his romantic and sexual interests was included in psychiatric notes and reports made by a medical team, portions of which were shown publicly in court but not discussed by either of the psychiatrists who testified.
His interactions with members of the opposite sex likely were closely probed because he originally said frustration over not being able to attract female interest was his motivation for his deadly attack.
Minassian admits he rented a van and drove it along a busy sidewalk in Toronto in 2018, trying to kill as many people as he could. He said the attack was part of an “Incel Rebellion” — short for “involuntarily celibate,” which is an internet-fed ideology largely for men built on anger toward women and other men who are sexually successful.
(He later said he was exaggerating his attachment to the incel movement but wanted notoriety, and was comfortable with being known as an incel, like other killers he was obsessed with.)
Minassian also told psychiatrists that before his arrest he masturbated everyday to internet porn, searching for urination fetish images, which he called “pee porn.”
Minassian also started reading the Bible since his arrest, according to psychiatric notes shown in court.
His family reported this interest to Dr. John Bradford, a forensic psychiatrist, who noted the information in a report. Minassian had read the New Testament, the second portion of the Christian text that focuses on the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Minassian’s reading interest is in keeping with observations by the National Post of his pretrial behaviour.
At a court hearing in August 2019, where lawyers and the judge were discussing whether the video of his police interrogation should be released to the media, Minassian sat quietly in the prisoner’s box holding a small Bible.
During breaks in the proceeding he hunched forward with the small book of dense type cupped in his hands. With his head lowered, he appeared to be reading intently from it.
The details from Minassian’s psychiatric examinations were not explained or recounted in court as the medical experts on the stand dwelled on other aspects of the reports, pages of which were shown repeatedly in court over a week of testimony while witnesses were asked to explain different portions of them.
The mental state of Minassian is the fundamental issue at his trial for 10 counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
Although he admits he is the killer, he nonetheless pleaded not guilty, claiming he should be found not criminally responsible because his autism prevented him from understanding it was wrong.
According to Section 16 of the Criminal Code of Canada, a person is not criminally responsible for a crime committed “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.”
Minassian’s lawyers are trying to prove that high standard applies to their client.
Minassian was examined by two different psychiatric teams, each arranged by his lawyers. They came to different conclusions.
For a week and a half, court heard from Bradford and a member of his team who specializes in autism, Dr. Rebecca Chauhan.
Chauhan took no stand on the criminal responsibility issue.
Bradford testified he did not think Minassian met the Section 16 threshold and does not recommend a verdict of not criminally responsible. He did, however, entertain a “hypothetical possibility” of such a verdict based on opinions from other psychiatrists yet to testify.
That opinion is expected this week, when Dr. Alexander Westphal, a U. S. psychiatrist specializing in autism, is scheduled to testify. Westphal is expected to say Minassian’s autism is a mental disorder capable of rendering him not criminally responsible.
Controversially, Westphal refused to testify unless the court — hosting the trial online through the Zoom video platform because of COVID-19 restrictions — agreed videos of his interviews with Minassian would never see the light of day outside of the courtroom and that any portions of his videos shown in court would be under tight restrictions on who was watching.
The Crown prosecutors are expected to also call two medical experts; both are expected to disagree with Westphal’s conclusions.