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 The Canadian Press was first published April 29, 2025.
The Canadian Press
