Merritt/Vancouver (CBC) -October 30 UPDATE – Allan Schoenborn in New Westminster Court November 4, fighting for “Constitutional right” to not be named a high risk accused.
ORIGINAL STORY – A lawyer for Allan Schoenborn, who was found not criminally responsible for killing his three children, says he will challenge a Crown bid to designate his client as “high risk accused.”
On Friday lawyer Rishi Gilll told the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster that he plans to challenge the application for the designation, arguing that it stems from a federal law that wasn’t in place at the time of the offences.
The move angered the family of Darcie Clark, the mother of Schoenborn’s deceased children. A spokesperson for Clark described the move as a delay tactic.
“Emotionally, this just doesn’t stop,” said Dave Teixeira. “We’ve spent more time in hearings this year than Allan Schoenborn has spent in treatment in two years.”
The Crown made the application under the terms of Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, which created the high risk designation. That bill has since become law.
The high risk designation would limit Schoenborn’s ability to leave a Coquitlam, B.C., forensic psychiatric hospital for visits. He’s been at the hospital since his 2010 trial.
Granted day passes
Last May, the B.C. Review Board granted Schoenborn escorted day passes into the community after his treating psychiatrist testified that he had made progress in anger management.
In September, B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch applied to have Schoenborn designated as a “high risk accused.”
Under the federal legislation, an accused would have to wait up to three years between hearings before the board, which grants release to people who have been handed verdicts of not criminally responsible.
Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible for stabbing his 10-year-old daughter and smothering his eight and five-year-old sons in their Merritt, B.C., home in April 2008.
Both sides will return to court next week.
