LAVAL - A Superior Court judge is to render a decision today on whether a Quebec man is not criminally responsible after he drove a city bus into a Montreal-area daycare in 2023, killing two children and injuring six others.
Justice Éric Downs will tell the court whether he accepts the joint recommendation of criminal non-responsibility from the Crown and the defence in the case of Pierre Ny St-Amand.
Separate psychiatrists — one for the Crown, the other for the defence — evaluated Ny St-Amand and came to the same conclusion: it is likely he was experiencing psychosis when he drove the bus into the daycare in Laval, Que., on the morning of Feb. 8, 2023.
Ny St-Amand, a former Laval public transit employee, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, and assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm in relation to the six other children who were injured.
The Crown has said it will seek to have Ny St-Amand declared a "high-risk accused," a designation that involves stricter rules governing absences from any treatment facility.
Downs has cautioned that a finding of criminal non-responsibility is neither an acquittal nor a conviction in the sense of the law, adding that there is no doubt the accused committed the acts.
This report by ´ºÉ«Ö±²¥was first published April 29, 2025.
