VANCOUVER — The lawyer for the man accused of an attack at a Vancouver Chinatown festival says his client had no motivation other than a direction from God to stab three people and he should be found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.
Glen Orris told a B.C. Supreme Court judge in closing arguments that Blair Donnelly’s mental illnesses “rendered him incapable of knowing if his actions were wrong” on Sept. 10, 2023, when two women and a man were injured at the festival.
But Crown counsel Mark Myhre disagreed that Donnelly met the legal threshold to be found not criminally responsible.
“You’re only getting to not criminally responsible if your delusions, your psychotic state, renders you incapable of knowing that society thinks what you’re doing is wrong,” he said.
“He does not meet the test however you frame it,” he said of Donnelly.
Donnelly has pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated assault and attended court Thursday carrying a bible.
His trial heard he was on unescorted leave from the B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on the day of the attack.
The court heard that Donnelly has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that the psychiatrist who testified earlier this week had more recently diagnosed him with “schizoaffective disorder bipolar type,” which manifests as religious delusions.
Orris said Thursday that both Donnelly and a psychiatrist told the court he had been suffering from religious delusions the day of the stabbings.
He was “overwhelmed and convinced by the belief that God wanted him to stab people,” Orris said.
“Mr. Donnelly’s psychotic illness rendered him incapable of making morally, grounded and rational decisions when he engaged in unprovoked attacks on innocent victims,” he said.
Donnelly has admitted to the crimes, but Orris said his state of mind at the time is the issue before the court.
His actions were “compelled by his belief that he required to carry out God’s instructions, will, suggestions, whatever you want to call it,” he said.
Donnelly testified earlier in the trial that he had initially planned to bike to a coffee shop in Coquitlam, but was “prompted by God to go to Chinatown” to harm people.
He told the court he first went to Home Depot and bought a chisel before travelling by SkyTrain to Vancouver and entering Chinatown.
Donnelly testified that he waited for a sign from God telling him not to hurt anyone, but when that did not come, he “carried on and did it.”
Orris said evidence presented at the trial has shown his client believed that what he was doing was contrary to his beliefs and character but was “not wrong in a moral sense as they were compelled and sanctioned by God.”
But Myhre argued Thursday that the “only prompting from God” that Donnelly testified to that day was the decision to override his plans to go for coffee.
“There was no pressure or urgency accompanying it,” he said.
Myhre also raised questions about Donnelly’s ability to make decisions on that day, pointing to his testimony about feeling turmoil over whether to commit the stabbings as well as “waiting for a sign” not to do the acts.
“If it’s a command that he’s irresistibly forced to obey, why the moment before the stabbing would he need to be asking God for a sign that’s actually what he’s supposed to do?”
Donnelly had previously been found not criminally responsible for stabbing his daughter to death in 2006, and for a 2017 attack on another psychiatric patient with a butter knife.
Donnelly testified last week that the death of his daughter was prompted by the belief he was being called by God to kill his wife. He believed at the time that if he did not, he would need to kill his entire family “by Christmas time.”
When asked why he stabbed his daughter instead of his wife, he struggled to recall his state of mind.
Myhre argued the lack of consequence was the “clear difference” when comparing Donnelly’s state of mind at the time of his daughter’s death and the attack in Chinatown.
“He didn’t believe there would be any negative consequence if he didn’t go through with it,” he said of the 2023 stabbings.
Justice Eric Gottardi spent a significant time Thursday discussing the interpretations of legal precedent on what would deem someone not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.
The case is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 24 for judgment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2025.
Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press
