A report into a triple stabbing at a festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown last year says the man accused of the crimes had been let out of a psychiatric care facility 99 times in the year prior without incident.
The report, authored by former Abbotsford Police chief Bob Rich, says Blair Donnelly was on his 100th unescorted leave from the B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on Sept. 10, 2023, when he allegedly stabbed three festival goers at the Light Up Chinatown Festival.
The external review, ordered by the provincial government after the stabbings, says Donnelly was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) for stabbing his daughter to death in 2006 while “suffering from a psychotic delusion that God wanted him to kill her.”
He also stabbed a friend while out on a day pass in 2009 and attacked a fellow patient with a butter knife shortly after returning from leave in 2017, according to B.C. Review Board documents.
Rich’s report makes several recommendations to better handle “higher-risk patients,” including bolstering their care teams, improving policies around granting patient leaves, shoring up hospital staff training and the use of “risk-management tools,” such as GPS tracking systems.
The B.C. Ministry of Health says it has accepted all of Rich’s recommendations and has already begun implementing them, including “following new policies for granting leave privileges at the hospital.”
Generally, patients at FPH are entitled to a Review Board hearing to assess their custody once per year. The hearings determine what type of leave or release a patient may be eligible for, including community outings.
The man accused of stabbing three people in Vancouver’s Chinatown while out on an unsupervised day pass from a psychiatric hospital was described as a ‘significant threat’ and a ‘high risk of relapsing’ at a hearing five months beforehand.
Once someone is determined to be eligible for day passes, safety assessments are conducted by hospital staff to determine whether outings should be allowed.
Donnelly’s review board documents noted he had a history of “sudden” violence.
He was the subject of a BCRB hearing on April 13, 2023, five months before the stabbings in Chinatown and was subsequently granted leave from the hospital, including overnight stays in the community of up to 28 days, at the discretion of the director of the facility.
The hearing decision document said Donnelly’s leave was “for the purpose of assisting in his reintegration into the society.”
But in his key findings, Rich said in his report: “It is my opinion that some patients may never be well enough to live unsupervised in the community.”
Donnelly was charged with three counts of aggravated assault in last year’s stabbings. All three victims — a couple in their 60s and a woman in her 20s — were seriously injured.
He is due back in Vancouver provincial court in March 2025.
At the time of the stabbings, B.C. Premier David Eby told reporters he was “white-hot” angry over the approval of Donnelly’s day release without supervision.