By Canadian Press

Bain going for defence of not criminally responsible in election-night shooting

Jul 18, 2016 | 3:25 PM

MONTREAL — The accused in Quebec’s 2012 election-night shooting has dismissed the notion the attack was motivated against the Parti Quebecois.

Richard Henry Bain testified at his first-degree murder trial Monday he doesn’t remember anything about that night’s events, which left one man dead and another injured as Pauline Marois was celebrating the PQ’s election victory.

Much of Bain’s testimony centred on the use of an anti-depressant he suggested fuelled his actions.

Testifying after his lawyer told jurors he will argue his client was not criminally responsible by way of mental disorder, Bain said he took as many as nine pills the day of the shooting.

Bain denied allegations the PQ victory that evening and his inability to vote earlier in the day due to a number of bureaucratic snafus played any part in what happened.

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“That’s hogwash, they won the election fair and square, we live in a democratic society,” he told the jury. “Whatever else people say is not true.”

The charges against Bain are connected to events outside the Metropolis nightclub as Marois was inside giving her victory speech.

They include first-degree murder in the shooting death of lighting technician Denis Blanchette and attempted murder after the same bullet hit another stagehand, David Courage.

He has pleaded not guilty to all six charges, including three of attempted murder and two that are arson-related.

Shown television footage of his arrest and the aftermath, Bain testified he couldn’t remember any of it: a fire set at the back of the nightclub, being pinned down by Montreal police officers or being dragged away wearing a blue bathrobe and balaclava as he yelled in French, ‘The English Are Waking Up.’

“It’s not the person that I know,” Bain said, admitting, however, “it’s me.”

Asked about his attitude to Marois, Bain called her a “smart lady to be elected the first woman premier in Quebec,” adding “she won in a man’s game.”

On the issue of language, Bain noted that despite being from an anglophone family, his life was primarily in French.

“All my friends are French,” he said.

Bain told the jury he remembered visiting his sister-in-law at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital the day of the shooting and was hit by a wave of depression following the visit, taking as many as nine anti-depressant pills in total.

He remembered driving around the Metropolis, but told the jury he didn’t have a cache of weapons and ammunition in his vehicle and doesn’t remember going home to retrieve them or changing into the clothes he was wearing when he was arrested shortly after midnight.

“For me, it was the medications,” Bain said, denying he was trying to block out the memories.

Bain testified he’d struggled with depression much of his life and he frequently blamed much of his impulsive behaviour on an anti-depressant — Cymbalta — he started taking after a major depression in 2009.

“Cymbalta takes away all your worries,” Bain testified. “It gives you the energy to do what you want to do, right or wrong.”

It was around that time — between 2009 and 2012 — that Bain blew through his entire life savings, an estimated $900,000.

The money went to various business ventures, but also on gentlemen’s clubs, limousines, alcohol and strippers. He also stockpiled food, medication and even military vehicles in the event of an H1N1 outbreak because he was convinced of a breakdown in civil society.

He later went off the drug after concerns raised by family, but went back on it in April 2012 without telling doctors.

Earlier on Monday, defence lawyer Alan Guttman told jurors they will hear from expert witnesses and members of Bain’s family as part of the mental disorder defence.

“So far you’ve heard about a man who worked all his life up until a certain point and quit and was in a depression that led up to Sept. 4,” Guttman told reporters during a break in proceedings.

“There’s a hole for five hours (on the day of the shooting), and I don’t know what happened in those five hours and Mr. Bain can’t remember this.”

The trial continues Tuesday.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press