Lawyers for a Quebec man who killed two children and injured six others when he drove a city bus into a Montreal-area daycare in 2023 say it would be unconstitutional for a judge to declare him a high-risk offender.
A Quebec Superior Court hearing began in Laval, Que., this morning in the case of Pierre Ny St-Amand, who was declared in April not criminally responsible for his actions because of a mental disorder.
The Crown is seeking to have Justice Éric Downs declare Ny St-Amand a high-risk offender, which would impose stricter rules on him while he is detained at a psychiatric hospital.
His lawyers say applying high-risk offender status to people declared not criminally responsible violates several articles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
They say in their legal briefing that the high-risk status assumes such offenders are irredeemable and reinforces the stereotype of the “criminal lunatic.”
Downs ruled in April that Ny St-Amand was likely in psychosis when he crashed the bus into the daycare, killing a four-year-old boy and five-year-old girl.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
