Bain was a high-risk, ticking time bomb, psychiatrist says
Richard Henry Bain was a “ticking time bomb” in the months that led up to the election-night shooting, the jury at the accused’s first-degree murder trial was told on Friday.
Forensic psychiatrist Marie Frédérique Allard is obviously the key to Bain’s defence as his lawyer Alan Guttman tries to convince the jury his client is not criminally responsible for his actions on Sept. 4, 2012. Friday marked the 25th day of the trial and Allard has been on the witness stand for three of those days so far. She is expected to return on Monday.
Bain shot and killed Denis Blanchette and wounded Dave Courage following the provincial election held that day.
The victims were stagehands and were standing outside the Metropolis nightclub, where members of the Parti Québécois were inside celebrating their victory that night. Premier designate Pauline Marois was delivering her victory speech when a single shot was fired and struck both men.
Allard’s theory is that Bain was suffering from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder and that his behaviour was affected by anti-depressants prescribed to him for years by a general practitioner.
She told the jury Bain’s medication should have been changed when he began displaying signs of manic behaviour in 2009.
The recommended treatment for a bipolar patient who requires an anti-depressant, Allard said, is to prescribe a mood stabilizer or anti-psychotic medication along with the anti-depressant. This was never done. His doctor stopped prescribing the anti-depressant Cymbalta in November 2009 when Bain’s behaviour became a concern. Another anti-depressant, Effexor, was prescribed instead, but Bain had purchased a large quantity of Cymbalta in September 2009 and kept it.
The jury has heard evidence that Bain started using his stockpile of Cymbalta in May 2009 because it made him feel like “Superman” and like he could accomplish anything. Allard said that people suffering from a bipolar disorder in this situation need very little sleep and have a sense they can tackle many difficult tasks at once. In reality the patient acts in a disorganized way, the psychiatrist said.
“Was he a ticking time bomb waiting to go off?” Guttman asked Allard at one point.
“Yes, he was a ticking time bomb. He was at a high risk of being delusional with mania,” Allard said.
She said the psychosis that bipolar patients experience in such a situation can go on for months if they continue to take an anti-depressant without a mood stabilizer. She told the jury she believes the psychosis continued even when Bain wrote out a series of answers to a series of questions she asked him, on Nov. 9, 2012. Among other things, he wrote that he would have killed Marois if he had seen her that night.
After her first interview with Bain, on Sept. 18, 2012, Allard requested that he stop being given the anti-depressant Effexor. A psychiatrist who was treating Bain at the Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre agreed to reduce the dosage and to eventually cease giving him the anti-depressant. But, according to Allard, Bain continued being prescribed Effexor after the dosage was reduced. The jury was informed during the trial that Bain is currently taking anti-psychotic medication.
To support her theory, Allard said that a doctor at the Royal Victoria Hospital who examined Bain hours after his arrest suspected he was psychotic. Also, Allard noted that a different psychiatrist who examined him at some point in September 2012 initially believed Bain displayed no signs of being psychotic but then completely reversed that opinion after examining him a second time on Oct. 4, 2012.
The jury has heard references to another forensic psychiatrist, Joel Watts, who also assessed Bain, several months after his arrest. When her testimony began this week, Allard mentioned that she and Watts worked together while assessing Luka Magnotta before his murder trial in 2014 (Magnotta was eventually found guilty of the 2012 murder of Concordia student Jun Lin). Both psychiatrists reached the same conclusions in Magnotta’s case, but they do not agree in their assessments of Bain.
“There are points on which Dr. Watts and I agree,” Allard said. “The difference is I believe (Bain) was psychotic. Dr. Watts thinks that Bain’s actions were motivated by hate and political convictions.”
Allard first became involved in Bain’s case in 2012. His lawyer at the time, Elfride-Andrée Duclervil, gave the psychiatrist the mandate to determine whether Bain could be found criminally responsible for the shooting. Allard interviewed Bain twice in 2012 and determined that he wasn’t even fit to stand trial.
Allard was asked to read her conclusions from the 2012 assessment to the jury. She felt in 2012 that Bain “understands the gravity of the charges against him,” but that he could not appreciate what was going on when he appeared in court. He believed, in November 2012, that a judge would agree to release him so that he could travel and preach about Christianity while awaiting his trial.
Allard also said Bain was upset with Duclervil because she refused to deliver statements he prepared for the media in which he detailed his “vision” from God over how Montreal could be partitioned from Quebec in the event the province ever separates from Canada. Allard said it was evident in 2012 that Bain saw Duclervil more as someone who should spread this “vision” instead of preparing his defence.
Allard’s 2012 assessment wasn’t presented in court until this week, because Duclervil stopped acting as Bain’s lawyer in January 2013.