Judge rules B.C. Crown can continue bid to argue mentally ill dad ‘high-risk’

VANCOUVER – A judge has ruled British Columbia Crown lawyers can proceed with legal arguments aimed at indefinitely locking up a mentally ill man who killed his three children.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin has ruled that public protection is the top consideration in allowing prosecutors to argue in court that changes to the Criminal Code should apply to Allan Schoenborn.

Defence lawyers told the court that Bill C-14 should not be applied in Schoenborn's case because the law was passed years after the 2008 killings.

The Conservative legislation passed in July 2014 sets out a new "high-risk accused" designation that includes provisions stopping almost all absences from a psychiatric hospital and has the potential to extend annual review hearings to once every three years.

Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder after stabbing his 10-year-old daughter and smothering his eight and five-year-old sons in their Merritt, B.C., home.

The B.C. Review Board decided last spring the hospital director has discretion to grant him escorted outings into the community.