Man not criminally responsible for trying to kill wife
A judge has declared a Cambridge man not criminally responsible for a brutal attack that left his wife with a brain bleed and broken bones.
Suffering from schizophrenia, he struck his wife multiple times with a metal bar stool, Kitchener court was told this week.
The man, 50, was charged with attempted murder and assault with a weapon.
Their nine-year-old son witnessed the attack, which happened last March around 3 a.m. in the kitchen of their Cambridge home.
The boy called 911 — the dispatcher could hear screaming — and unsuccessfully tried to stop his father from attacking his mom. Police arrived.
“She was badly beaten, laying unconscious and unresponsive on the floor,” said Crown prosecutor Aaron McMaster, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
“There was a large amount of blood in the area around her head. Her eyes were swollen shut and her face was also badly swollen.”
The woman, 51, underwent emergency treatment at Hamilton General Hospital. She had a brain bleed, blood around the lungs, many broken bones and multiple cuts to the head.
Police found her husband uninjured in the kitchen covered in his wife’s blood.
The attack broke and bent parts of the bar stool.
A forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Ajay Prakash, told court that due to a mental disorder, the man was incapable of knowing his actions were wrong.
He had delusions, paranoia and hallucinations.
Justice Stephen Darroch declared the man not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. He will be detained in a forensic hospital, possibly for many years, under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board.
The man led a normal, law-abiding life until developing mental illness a year before the attack.
In March 2022, he went to Cambridge Memorial Hospital “seeking support for exposure to ‘radioactive substances,’ ” McMaster said. That was a delusion.
The man was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed antipsychotic medications.
He stopped taking them in August 2022, unbeknownst to his wife.
In an unusual twist, the man pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his wife by touching her over her clothes two days before the attack with the bar stool. A court order prevents publication of any information that could identify her.
Prakash concluded the man knew the sexual assault was wrong.
Darroch agreed to defence lawyer Steve Gehl’s request for a discharge.
A sexual-assault conviction could have triggered a deportation order. The man immigrated to Canada from China and is a permanent resident, not a citizen.
The finding of not criminally responsible of attempted murder won’t get him deported.
He has been in custody since attacking his wife with the bar stool.
“Being in custody is hard for anybody, but when you’re schizophrenic, it’s 10 times worse,” Gehl said. “One of the hallmarks of schizophrenia is paranoia, which is exacerbated by being detained in custody.”
The Crown opposed a discharge. The man’s guilty plea spared his wife from testifying, Darroch said, adding the sexual assault was at lower end of the severity scale.
His mental illness reduces his moral blameworthiness, the judge said.
“This is a highly unusual sentence,” Darroch said of a discharge for sexual assault.
He ordered him to give a DNA sample and handed him a five-year weapons ban.
The Cambridge man will be detained in a forensic hospital, possibly for many years, under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board