Vince Li will walk free in Selkirk and Winnipeg

Vince Li could soon be leaving the Selkirk Mental Health Centre for the secure psychiatric ward at Health Sciences Centre, and will be allowed unescorted trips into Winnipeg, Selkirk, and other surrounding areas.

RECORD PHOTO BY DAVE BAXTER

-Originally published in the Selkirk Record

Vince Li has been granted more freedoms after they were requested for him at a hearing last week.

Last week the Manitoba Review Board granted Vince Li, the man who stabbed and decapitated 22-year-old Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus in 2008 more freedoms.

In a decision released last Friday afternoon, the board agreed to all requests from Li’s treatment team, including a move to a secure psychiatric ward at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, and the opportunity to have unescorted visits to Winnipeg, Selkirk, and surrounding areas, including Lockport and local beaches.

Li must carry a cell phone with him during all unescorted visits.

The board also said they will consider allowing Li to eventually transition into a secure group home in Winnipeg.

The decision on whether Li can move into a secure group home will be made after the release of an updated assessment report, and a detailed community living plan.

Li, who suffers from schizophrenia, was found not criminally responsible (NCR) for the death of Tim McLean, and has been held at Selkirk Mental Health Centre since 2009.

Last week’s decision follows a series of new freedoms also granted to Li last winter, and once again have led to heated debate, and national media attention.

But Chris Summerville, the executive director of the Manitoba Schizophrenia Society, said he has spent a lot of time with Vince Li, and said Li is simply not the monster that many have made him out to be.

“He is calm, and he realizes what he did,” said Summerville. “He has great remorse about it.

“When we come to that subject, it is tearfully difficult for him to talk about it.

“And he knows a lot of public sentiment is against him, and he knows there is nothing that he can do to make up for it.”

Summerville said since starting treatment, Li has done everything he can do as a mental health patient to better himself.

“What else would you want a person to do? What would you expect him to do?” asked Summerville.

“You would expect him to be remorseful and humble and willing to take medication, and join a support group, and be willing to be monitored. And he has done all these things.”

Summerville said he knows some people worry that Li could go off his medication if left on his own, but he said the reason he doesn’t believe that will happen is because Li suffers no major side effects from him medication.

“People stop medication because of side effects, and he doesn’t have any severe side effects.

“And he understands the importance of taking the medication, because he doesn’t want anything like this to ever happen again.”

Summerville also thinks people are confused about what Not Criminally Responsible means.

“He is not a prisoner. He is a patient.”

He also said the barbarity of what Li did to McLean is not a reason to assume he will reoffend.

“People don’t want to believe that, but studies have been done and show how you kill someone is not a reason to believe that you will reoffend.

 “It was totally horrific, but that is not a reason for people to assume something will happen again.”

Although Li was found NCR for the death of Tim McLean, Selkirk-Interlake MP James Bezan condemned the decision by the Manitoba Review Board, and called it an “insult to his victim’s family.”

“I am very concerned about Tim McLean’s family who has yet to see justice served,” said Bezan in a press release. “And I express my condolences to the family for this callous decision.

“In my opinion, this decision poses a great risk to public safety.”

Bezan said he still thinks Li he should be designated as “high risk.”

“The Crown has the ability to view Vince Li as a designated High Risk - Not Criminally Responsible person, but they have chosen not to,” said Bezan.

“They have blatantly ignored the rights of the victim’s family, and compromised the public safety of our community in its decision.  The Board did not take into consideration the family of Tim McLean, nor do they care about the public safety concerns raised by families living in Winnipeg and Selkirk.”

Bezan also made it clear that he does not think Li should be transitioned into a group home.

“The provincial decision to grant Mr. Li unescorted trips to Winnipeg, and to let him move into a Winnipeg group home is unacceptable,” said Bezan.

Summerville said he is worried that Bezan and other politicians are using the Vince Li decision for political gain.

“They are not psychiatrists and it is political pandering, and they should know better,” said Summerville.

Li’s treatment team has made it clear that the goal of treatment is to eventually reintegrate Li back into society.