OTTAWA – A mentally ill man accused of starting a fire outside the Prime Minister’s official residence over the weekend was once found not criminally responsible of twice stabbing a stranger in the back with a Swiss Army knife.
At around the same time as the stabbing, Daniel Skahan, 29, had also harboured thoughts of assassinating a politician – such as Stephen Harper – with a gun.
The reason, according to a 2007 psychiatric report prepared after he was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon, was rooted in delusions that he needed to show a “powerful” person in the United States, who he feared was going to use him as a “pawn” in a game to “blow up earth and find another planet to colonize,” that he was not “afraid.”
According to the 2007 report, Skahan suffers from schizoaffective disorder, a mood disorder whose symptoms can resemble bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
Skahan was found not criminally responsible of the stabbing and was then placed under the supervision of the Ontario Review Board.
According to the ORB, he spent several months at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre before being discharged to live with his parents.
When his symptoms re-emerged, he voluntarily returned in January 2008 to the hospital, where he later wrapped a belt around another patient’s neck. That incident resulted in him being placed on continuous observation and his medication increased.
In November 2008, he was released to a community-based program before being allowed to move into his own apartment a year later.
Although still considered a “significant risk” to the community, the Ontario Review Board granted him a conditional discharge in May, which required him to follow several conditions, including reporting once a month to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and refraining from possessing any weapons.
The ORB is required by law to render the least onerous and restrictive disposition that balances the need for public safety with the liberty of the accused person.
According to the ORB decision, the hospital believed he should be closely monitored for a year following discharge for the return of any symptoms.
The decision noted Skahan’s mental health was “very stable” and he had complied with his follow-up treatment and ORB conditions while living in the community.
In the January 2007 incident, Skahan randomly stabbed a man as he waited for a taxi in Ottawa’s downtown core.
The victim was grabbed from behind and forced to the ground by the six-foot-four Skahan, who put his hand over the victim’s nose and mouth before getting on top of him. Skahan stabbed the man twice in the back before the victim, who received non-life threatening wounds, was able to flee.
When Skahan, who cut himself during the attack, returned home with a bloody hand, his mother asked him what happened. He told her he had just stabbed someone and she called police.
Skahan later told the doctor he had tried to slash the man’s throat and only resorted to stabbing him after realizing he was unsuccessful.
The incident occurred at around the same time he was thinking about shooting a politician, although Skahan abandoned those thoughts after deciding that finding a gun would be too difficult. He instead settled on killing someone with a knife.
According to the 2007 psychiatric report, Skahan believed he was “not in control of anything” at the time of the stabbing and needed to kill someone to show he was in control.
The stabbing, the report indicated, was further fuelled by his “bizarre” delusions that killing someone would prevent him and Jesus – whom Skahan strongly identified with because he, too, was an only child – from being sent in a spaceship to colonize a new planet as part of the plot by a powerful American.
“Mr. Skahan developed a belief that he was morally justified in killing someone in order to ward off harm to himself, Jesus and the earth,” said the psychiatric report, which the Ottawa Citizen obtained independently of Skahan’s first court appearance in the fire case on Monday.
On Saturday, Skahan was arrested outside Harper’s residence after a man poured a flammable liquid on the sidewalk and lit it on fire. Police officers quickly extinguished the fire, which was set outside the gate.
Wearing a green T-shirt and glasses, an unshaven and slightly heavy-set Skahan glanced around the courtroom on Monday, but said nothing as Ontario Court Justice Lise Maisonneuve ordered him to undergo an in-custody 30-day psychiatric assessment.
A publication ban was imposed on proceedings in court.
Skahan is charged with mischief under $5,000, possession of incendiary material and failing to comply with conditions of an assessment order.
His next scheduled court appearance is Aug. 23.
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