The woman found not criminally responsible for abandoning her toddler\u00a0in a field in June will remain detained at the Montreal psychiatric hospital where she’s been treated since July, a Quebec judge ruled Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Judge\u00a0Bertrand\u00a0St-Arnaud\u00a0said while the mother is collaborating with her treatment team\u00a0and her mental health has improved, it remains fragile. Her medication still needs to be adjusted, he said.<\/p>\n
He favoured the Crown’s arguments that at this stage, the mother poses a threat to public safety. She cannot be named due to a publication ban protecting the identity of her daughter.<\/p>\n
The judge also agreed with the proposal submitted by Crown attorney Lili Pr\u00e9vost-Gravel, where the mother\u00a0would be\u00a0allowed occasional outings from the\u00a0Institut national de psychiatrie l\u00e9gale Philippe-Pinel with some conditions. These include not contacting the father of her toddler and not going on the internet\u00a0unless supervised by her treatment team.<\/p>\n
During a 60-day evaluation, a psychiatrist\u00a0diagnosed the woman with schizoaffective disorder which can lead to\u00a0states of depression, mania and psychotic episodes.\u00a0The psychiatrist said\u00a0she was in a psychotic state when she drove her daughter\u00a0from Montreal and abandoned her in an Ontario field.<\/p>\n
The toddler became\u00a0the subject of an intensive search when she was reported missing by her mother on June 15. She was found alive\u00a0three days later on the side of a highway in Ontario, about 150 kilometres from Montreal.<\/p>\n
When she was found, the little girl\u00a0was severely dehydrated, soiled and\u00a0had multiple insect bites and lesions from poison ivy.\u00a0Pr\u00e9vost-Gravel said the girl, who is now in her father’s custody,\u00a0suffers from nightmares and fears being left alone.<\/p>\n
The mother’s mental health had significantly deteriorated over the months leading up to the events.\u00a0She was not taking medication and was not being monitored by a health professional.<\/p>\n
Her file will be handed over to Quebec’s review board for mental disorders which will\u00a0become\u00a0responsible for determining if, when and how she should be discharged.<\/p>\n
The board will review her case in 90 days, just before Christmas, and could decide to release her depending on her mental state and progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n
People found not criminally responsible and who are either released under conditions or remain detained\u00a0have to return at least once a year for a hearing in front of the board where their mental condition is reassessed until they receive an absolute discharge.<\/p>\n
After delivering his ruling, Judge St-Arnaud\u00a0wished the woman well, saying the dark cloud that was over her had now been lifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking outside the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, Crown attorney Pr\u00e9vost-Gravel said it’s a good thing the woman will continue to receive treatment.<\/p>\n
“Everybody was involved emotionally,” she said. “The judge is a human being and I think it’s fair to give hope to an accused even if she’s done something really impossible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman found not criminally responsible for abandoning her toddler\u00a0in a field in June will remain detained at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-164805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}