The young man who violently attacked a 10-year-old girl in Pointe-aux-Trembles, Montreal, in the middle of the street last March, allegedly first went to his former workplace to kill his supervisor, is he alleged in new proceedings filed in court Wednesday morning.
On March 14, 2022, the girl was returning home with two friends for lunch, when Tanvir Singh, 21, suddenly assaulted her, punching and kicking her and even crushing her head in the face. floor. The child suffered serious injuries and retains psychological scars.
Bystanders overpowered the man and he was arrested at the scene. Singh was charged with, among other things, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.
Then, in July, he was found not criminally responsible for his actions on account of mental disorder.
Crown prosecutor Me Annabelle Sheppard believes that the young man remains dangerous to the public, and to this end has filed a motion to have him declared a “high risk accused.” »
In it, several allegations – none of them has yet been proven in court – allow us to reconstruct the hours preceding the brutal attack on the girl.
The day before, Tanvir Singh allegedly asked a man living in the same house as him in Brampton, Ontario, for a weapon in order to carry out a mass shooting in the factory where he had worked in Montreal. The latter refused, and there was no follow-up to this conversation, can we read in the procedure.
Then, he would have gone to Montreal “completely overwhelmed by his thoughts and the voices that spoke to him”.
In his old factory, he would have obtained an “exacto” in a locker room and tried to lure his supervisor into the parking lot to attack him. But that plan didn’t work, so he left the place. He then allegedly went to a Canadian Tire store to steal a knife, hoping to be arrested because he knew he needed help, he told the medical team. This plan also failed. He then allegedly returned to the factory and hid in the bathroom to harm his supervisor, but was surprised by another employee. Faced with these repeated failures, he would have left the factory and, while walking on the boulevard du Tricentaire, he came across the little girl by chance.
When he was hospitalized following his arrest, the forensic psychiatrist who conducted an expert opinion — also filed in court in support of the motion — noted that Singh considers his illness to be “under control”, that his symptoms are gone and that nothing is likely to happen again.
She also noted that he had stopped taking his medication for several days, without the knowledge of the treating staff, because he considered that they had “little use. He doesn’t want to take medication in injection form every month, which doesn’t require taking pills every day. These findings are considered worrying by the psychiatrist.
“The risk of psychotic relapse and violence in Mr. Singh remains significant,” she writes.
If a judge declares the young man “accused at high risk”, this would have the effect of making his detention in a psychiatric hospital even stricter and restricting his outings, Mr Sheppard explained in July, adding that the objective is to ensure public safety.
The young man’s attorney has signaled her intention to request her own expertise in order to enlighten the judge who will be called upon to decide.
Tanvir Singh is not free: he is still detained at the Philippe-Pinel Psychiatric Institute in Montreal.
The case must return to Judge Alexandre Dalmau of the Court of Quebec in November.