Overview

• The judge-alone trial began Monday at the Supreme Court in Vancouver, where Blair Donnelly pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated assault.
• Crown prosecutor Mark Myhre told the court Donnelly has admitted stabbing three people, leaving the court to decide criminal liability versus a not-criminally-responsible finding.
• The Crown says Donnelly was on unescorted day leave from the B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, purchased a wood chisel at Home Depot, took SkyTrain into the city and proceeded to Light Up Chinatown.
• Court heard the stabbings occurred just before 6 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2023, injuring two women in the back and a man in the forearm; the victims received stitches, bandaging and tetanus shots.
• A 2024 review reported Donnelly had 99 unescorted leaves in the prior year without incident and documented earlier violent episodes in 2009 and 2017; the trial is expected to run about three weeks with the defence yet to present.