BC Review Board says Blair Donnelly to remain in custody

The man accused of stabbing three people in Chinatown while he was out on a day pass from a psychiatric hospital in September will not be allowed out in public unescorted anytime soon.

The BC Review Board says Blair Evan Donnelly, who has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault in connection with the attack, has been ordered to be detained in custody.

He is to live at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam and is bound by a number of conditions, including being subject to “general direction and supervision” of the facility’s director.

The BC Review Board has been under much scrutiny after Donnelly was allowed out on day pass despite being deemed a “significant threat.”

In 2006, the man fatally stabbed his daughter. He was found not criminally responsible. In 2009, the review board previously noted he stabbed another individual while on a day pass. In this case, he was found criminally responsible.

Dave Teixeira, a victim’s rights advocate, says it was an “obvious move” to revoke Donnelly’s outing privileges.

“It’s one they should never have allowed in the first place, so they’re correcting an egregious error,” he said of the Review Board, adding, “but I also think they didn’t do it on their own.”

“If it was not for the media attention on this case, it would not have happened,” Teixeira explained.

Despite the BC Review Board’s decision as outlined in the hearing disposition this month, this doesn’t mean Donnelly’s door out into society is closed forever.

Teixeira notes the purpose of facilities like the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital is to help patients reintegrate into society.

“That’s always been the case. If the case was ‘You’re here forever,’ that’s not the mandate of a not-criminally-responsible ruling, nor is that the intent of Colony Farm,” he explained.

“I think the goal should always be for progressing the wellness of the patients. If you remove that, then what do you have? You just have captivity or imprisonment by some other name, which is not the right way to do things.”

The September stabbings in Vancouver prompted Premier David Eby to task former Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich to investigate how the man could have been granted leave from the Coquitlam psychiatric hospital.