(KIM ANDERSON / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS - A Kamloops provincial judge has dismissed a “not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder” application for a man who assaulted a hospital employee last year.

Blair Alexander Eyres, born in 1977, was a patient at Royal Inland Hospital last November where he allegedly pushed and punched a hospital employee several times while suffering from a drug-induced psychosis, Kamloops Provincial Judge Roy Dickey said yesterday, Nov. 22.

On Nov. 28, 2017, while under the influence of methamphetamine, Eyres turned to Facebook to post that people were trying to harm him, Dickey says. He claimed to see people in his backyard others could not. Police were called and he was taken to the hospital to be further assessed where he allegedly assaulted a hospital employee.

Eyres’s defence lawyer Dustin Gagnon argued his client was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the assault. He said it was a combination of sedative drugs he received at the hospital that caused him to react that way. But Dickie said that wouldn't have explained why Eyres reacted angrily to police prior to being sedated.

A psychiatric report of the accused’s mental history was conducted and found there was insufficient evidence to prove he was suffering from a disease of the mind at the time of the assault, Dickey said.

“There was no evidence Eyres acted abnormally from the consumption of drugs,” he said, adding that a normal person would have reacted similarly under the consumption of methamphetamine. Eyres would have known that when he voluntarily consumed the drugs. 

The question of mental disorder was the only issue in the way of a guilty plea. Once the matter was decided, Gagnon told the court his client would plead guilty.

Sentencing isn't anticipated for at least two months while a pre-sentence report is prepared.

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