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Vince Li’s horrific crime puts spotlight on rehabilitation for mentally ill offenders

It's called NCRMD, shorthand for the Criminal Code provision that someone accused of wrongdoing can be held not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder.

That law often becomes a fracture point when victims of crime believe it closes the door on justice, no more so when the crime is as horrific as Vince Li killing and decapitating a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus four years ago.

Li, who suffers from schizophrenia, this week was granted supervised trips outside the Manitoba mental institution where he was sent after the court found him not criminally responsible for the horrific murder, The Canadian Press reported.

The decision by the Manitoba Criminal Review Board angered Carol de Delley, whose 22-year-old son Tim McLean was killed by Li. She believes he's still a danger.

"It's possible," she told CTV News on Thursday. "He could go off his meds. We know what happened last time he did. And at the end of the day, who then would be held responsible? Nobody."

If it were up to de Delley, Li "would never walk free again. He would remain in a locked facility for criminally insane individuals."

It's a longstanding dilemma for Canada's justice system: Does a mentally ill person who's committed a hideous crime deserve a chance to return to society?

Does giving someone like Li that opportunity deny justice to de Delley and McLean's other loved ones?

Li, who was suffering from hallucinations due to untreated schizophrenia, attacked the sleeping young man sitting next to him while their bus was heading to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. He stabbed McLean with large knife, cut off his head, which he displayed to other frightened passengers, and ate his flesh.

But a review panel approved escorted absences, starting at 30 minutes and increasing gradually to full days, because psychiatrists believe he's made enough progress in his treatment that his risk of re-offending is only about one per cent.

"For McLean's mother, Carol de Delley, the systematic injustices condoned by an impenetrable institutional bureaucracy continue," public policy commentator Janice McKendrick wrote in the Huffington Post.

"Barring a public outcry, the outcome is a given," said McKendrick, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island. "Vincent Li will be given access into the community and in the months ahead, he will obtain eventual freedom."

The case of Allan Schoenborn created a similar uproar last year.

Schoenborn, who had a long history of mental illness, was found not criminally responsible for murdering his three young children at the home of his estranged wife in the small town of Merritt, B.C., in 2008.

A review board last year granted Schoenborn escorted leaves from the B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Hospital into the nearby Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam for a coffee, a swim at a local pool or a stroll through a shopping mall.

But his ex-wife was also now living in the area, raising the prospect she could bump into Schoenborn on one of his day passes.

The furor over the decision prompted the government to order the board to review it but Schoenborn voluntarily withdrew his application for the passes, the Globe and Mail reported at the time.

De Delley is calling for changes to the the law to stop people like Li from ever being released, even if doctors think it's safe.

"The need to have a serious debate on how we 'treat' people with mental illness who have offended in this manner," she wrote on her blog Tim's Law.

"Public consultations across Canada that would be mandated to compile a list of recommendations including accountability and transparency within institutions. Of course we already know that Tim's Law can do little to prevent this type of crime. But it could provide strict legal and institutional criterion to prevent these types of criminal activity from reoccurring by the same perpetrator."

The federal government last reformed the mental-disorder sections of the Criminal Code in 2005, expanding the authority of review boards and allowing crime victims to read impact statements at hearings, among other things.

But as the Manitoba panel was dealing with Li, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson signaled the Conservative government will take another run at the law, this time leaning more towards protecting the public, according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

Without mentioning Li specifically, Nicholson said Canadians have expressed concern about the risks posed by people like him.

"They are worried that those who have committed very serious and violent acts and who represent a threat to the community may be released onto our streets," the minister wrote in a statement.

Nicholson said he's ordered department bureaucrats to examine the law to identify any necessary changes to support the view public safety comes first.

But Chris Summerville, chief executive officer of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, urged the government not use cases like Li as a template for policy change.

"It was such a grotesque, horrific, ghastly event," Summerville told the Free Press. "To make public policy on one event that is driven by a lot of emotion is not good policy."