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An Interior Health psychiatric nurse has failed to get a mental health warrant to apprehend and then assess a severely paranoid 63-year-old Kootenay woman after much of the testimony she gave in court turned out not to be true.

The details are laid out in a July 20 Provincial Court of BC decision, whereby Judge Nicholas Preovolos refused to grant a warrant to the Community Crisis Response Team psychiatric nurse to enter the woman's home and possibly apprehend the woman for treatment.

The judge ruled that while the woman's behaviour was "unsettling and unconventional," and there was strong evidence she was suffering from paranoia and delusions, that wasn't enough to detain her.

"The balance struck by the Mental Health Act between the autonomy of the individual and society's obligation to help and protect the mentally ill requires considerably more than a treatable disorder of the mind to permit apprehension," the judge ruled.

The case highlights the fine line the state needs to take when detaining people and questions how much authority it should have over a person clearly displaying signs of paranoia and mental illness.

The decision says the case came about when one of the woman's adult sons spoke to the RCMP saying he was concerned about his mother’s mental health and the well-being of his two adult siblings who lived with her.

All the names and the location have been omitted from the court document, but it appears the woman, referred to as E.L.K., lives in the Kootenays.

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The decision says E.L.K. has lived on a rural property for more than 25 years, homeschooled all her children, and two of her adult sons, aged 24 and 18, still live there.

"She exhibits signs of severe paranoia and shuns the outside world," Judge Preovolos said in the decision. "To block the view of her front yard and house from the street and to prevent anyone from observing the front of her house by looking over the fence, she has set up bedsheets adorned with crosses on the perimeter of her property."

After the son spoke to the police, the RCMP along with the Interior Health’s Community Crisis Response Team visited the property but were unable to contact anyone there.

The psychiatric nurse then applied for a warrant to apprehend the woman and have her examined at a provincial mental health facility.

However, the judge wasn't happy with the scant evidence the nurse put forward.

Judge Preovolos said most of the nurse's evidence was hearsay as she didn't speak to the woman.

The nurse also said she was concerned for her own safety if she had to deal with the woman and asked Interior Health to supply her with a bulletproof vest if she had to go to the property. The health authority refused.

The judge pointed out "significant inconsistencies" between the nurse's testimony and that of the son.

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The psychiatric nurse said the son – referred to as W.K. in the document – had "escaped" his mother's home two years earlier. The nurse also told the court the woman had firearms at the property and that W.K.'s last visit was to check on his younger siblings.

However, the Judge pointed out W.K. testified he left home with his mother's blessing in 2015, he didn't know if she had guns at the house, and the reason for his last visit was to discuss money and who his real dad was.

The son testified he'd visited his mother four times since 2016 and his mother was "fairly paranoid."

On one visit she gave him a pat-down search because she was worried he might "take her out" on behalf of one of her "enemies."

On another visit a couple of years later, W.K. asked his mother where the livestock was because she'd always kept chickens, sheep and goats.

"(She) told him she had to get rid of them because people were coming onto the property and molesting them," the decision reads.

The adult son testified his mother had been moderately religious but was becoming more radical in her beliefs. More than a decade earlier she had said that God was speaking to her and telling her to do certain things. She once said that the footsteps coming from upstairs were the Devil coming to take their souls.

In 2017 she refused to let BC Hydro workers install smart meters and has lived without electricity since. She stopped drinking from her well, believing the neighbours poisoned it. Instead, she collects water from a river at the end of the property.

The decision says she rarely left the property, and neighbours reported once seeing her leave with her children all wearing Halloween-style animal masks.

"Whatever disorder of the mind (she) has, I find there are reasonable grounds to believe that it 'requires treatment,'" the judge said. "(Her) paranoia and delusions and the life she leads gives rise to reasonable grounds to believe that a disorder of the mind is severely impairing her ability to react appropriately to her environment or to associate with others."

However, the judge said there was no evidence she was "unkempt, malnourished or suffering from untreated medical problems."

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"There is insufficient evidence to form reasonable grounds to believe that care, supervision or control in or through a designated facility are needed to prevent (her) substantial physical deterioration," the judge ruled. "Similarly, there is insufficient evidence to establish reasonable grounds to believe that care, supervision or control in or through a designated facility are needed to prevent (her) substantial mental deterioration."

The judge said there was nothing to suggest her mental health was worse than it had been several years ago.

"The real question is whether (her) care, supervision and control in or through a designated facility are required for her protection or the protection of others?" the judge said.

Ultimately, Judge Preovolos decided that it wasn't and dismissed the Community Crisis Response Team's application to have her detained.

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