![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nOn Monday, St-Arnaud determined the mother was not criminally responsible for her actions because of a mental disorder. She was charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm and unlawful abandonment of a child.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
A psychiatric report concluded she had been suffering from schizoaffective disorder and was having an episode when she abandoned her three-year-old daughter on June 15. The woman reported her daughter missing at a store west of Montreal the same day, saying she had no memory of the previous hours, or of the toddler\u2019s whereabouts. The girl was found alive three days later in an Ontario field off Highway 417, about 120 kilometres west of Montreal, after she was spotted by a police drone. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not forget that this came very, very close to causing the death of a three-year-old child,\u201d St-Arnaud said during the hearing. <\/p>\n
His ruling followed the recommendation of Marie-Mich\u00e8le Boulanger, the psychiatrist who evaluated the mother and concluded in a 48-page report she ought to remain in custody. The judge also agreed with Crown prosecutor Lili Pr\u00e9vost-Gravel that the woman should eventually be able to leave the hospital for visits, as long as her medical team agrees. The team, he said, can also decide if the visits should be supervised or not.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor warned the judge that despite her becoming more stable since her detention, the woman could very well have a resurgence of her symptoms should she be released. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with mental illness, your honour, is that it can play tricks on us, and you can think you\u2019re getting better,\u201d the prosecutor said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any concrete proof that in society, with all these stressors, and with everything that will follow, that this will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also questioned if the woman would remain committed to taking her medication.<\/p>\n
Justin Chenel, the woman\u2019s lawyer, said in response, \u201cI understand my colleague\u2019s concern that, once she\u2019s in society, we don\u2019t know if the woman might stop taking her medication, but that is a hypothetical concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wanted her to be released under various conditions, citing her exemplary commitment to her recovery. \u201cThere has been an exceptional evolution in the defendant,\u201d he said, something the psychiatric report had also noted.<\/p>\n
A mental health tribunal will decide in the coming months whether she can be released from the psychiatric hospital. In the meantime, the woman is not allowed to communicate with her daughter, unless the province\u2019s youth protection agency authorizes it. As well, she is not allowed to contact the child\u2019s father unless he reaches out first.<\/p>\n
The judge also barred her from using the internet without supervision from her medical team.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025. <\/p>\n
Miriam Lafontaine, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, St-Arnaud determined the mother was not criminally responsible for her actions because of a mental disorder.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-27762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}