VANCOUVER - A man accused of aggravated assault for stabbing three people at a Vancouver Chinatown festival, in an attack that prompted debate over the handling of some psychiatric patients, has been found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Eric Gottardi said Friday that the court doesn't convict people of crimes for being sick.

The trial heard that Blair Donnelly, 66, had asked the Holy Spirit for a sign not to carry out the stabbings in September of 2023, but he didn't get one and carried on with the attack because he “wanted to obey God.”

Gottardi said Donnelly lacked the ability to rationally choose to commit the crime.

"I find Mr. Donnelly has established on a balance of probability that he was suffering a mental illness at the time tha

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