Mental
health
worker
backs
police

From page 1

At the time of the diagnosis,
Austin was serving a jail sentence for
the break and enter of a house with
intent to commit a sexual assault,
according to the judge.

_-Huddart said the offence seemed
to have resulted from “a delusional
belief.”

Huddart noted that “even more
disturbing” was the fact that a psy-
chiatric examination order by a judge
passing sentence was not conducted.

Meanwhile North Vancouver
-RCMP spokesman Const, Catherine
Galliford said that every officer at the

“detachment deals with someone he
‘er she believes has a mental illness
every week.

‘We get a lot of calls from family

“. and doctors advising us that they
. believe that someone may have failed
.to take their medication and they
may have mood swings or be vio-
lent,” said Galliford.

She said most people are a danger

- to themselves and not to others.

Since November, the North

. Vancouver RCMP have been assisted -

by an on-call professional mental

health worker. The worker either

advises them or attends a call and
assesses a person who police suspect
of being mentally ‘ill but does not

. seem to qualify for hospital cominit-
tal under the Mental Health Act.

‘The response time for the on-call

worker participating in the program

is 30 minutes.

Police officers used to spend cost-
ly hours waiting with an apparently
mentally ili person to see a doctor at
Lions Gate Hospital.

'. » Meanwhile Huddart said that
Austin’s schizophrenia. was stabi-
" lized with medication. She said that
“>the man probably had symptoms of
"the illness in-his teens, but was not
“diagnosed until years later when his

mental condition had deteriorated to
- a“floridly psychotic state” in the late

“summer of 1994.

“It is not an uncommon story,
unfortunately, in our community,”
stated the judge.

‘$n. 1992, North Vancouver doctor
., Meme Flather was shot and killed
“ outside his home on East Keith Road.

i’ The shooter, David Henderson, in

his late 40s, of North Vancouver, was

: diagnosed with paranoid schizophre-
" nia after the crime.

“.2.¢-Forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth
“Zoffmann testified at a 1994 inquest

that Henderson displayed symptoms

of his serious mental illness for more
~ than 20 years.

3

“NDP” MLA Schreck makes
; Parkway Place announcement.

U

B.C. Winter Games:

banner month for athletes

SUTHERLAND SECONDARY schoo} student Michael Chou paints 2 banner for the B.C. Winter Garnes. Chou is one of about 30
studonts who have volunteered to produce banners for the Games, which will be held frem Feb. 22 to 25 in North Vancouver.

A 53-YEAR-OLD man claimed in B.C,
Supreme Court trial this week that he
assumed his elderly West Vancouver moth-
er died of heart failure. He also rejected a
forensic pathologist’s suggestion that phys-
ical abuse caused her death.

By Brent Mudry
Contributing Writer

“That only confused me ... that was ludicrous,”
Michael McCune calmly told a B.C. Supreme
Court jury on Monday.

McCune lived with his mother and was her sole
caregiver,

He countered a police officer's observation that
he appeared not to be grieving when police arrived
at.the McCune home three years ago after he
phoned 9-1-1 to say his mother, Barbara McCune,
83, was dead.

“J think I was still rciatively in shock; the death
surprised me,” he told the jury with a steady voice
and dead-pan composure.

Michael McCune, 53, is on trial for second-
degree murder in connection with the death of his
mother. Barbara McCune died on Jan. 29, 1993,

Man charged with
murder of mother
testifies in court

The official cause of death was due to shock and
bleeding from lacerations to her fiver, believed
caused by a direct blow to her chest.

McCune was called as the first witness Monday
as his lawyer Michael Bolton opened the defence.
As his two brothers, Shane and Terry, sat in the
front row of the galfery. McCune calmly explained
his version of the alleged pattern of assaults the
Crown contends led up to his mother’s death.

McCune spoke in measured tones, showing lit-
tle emotion, appearing mildly indignant at times.

The defendant told Mr. Justice Wally Oppal and
the jury that he was too embarrassed to tell his
family the truth about the cause of marks to his
mother’s face, noticed one month before her death
at a family Christmas in Powell River.

“That was just the first thing that greeted me:
‘What the hell happened to mother?’ * McCune
recalled.

“] just said she fell,” he added.

McCune said he was “too exasperated and too

embarrassed” to admit the injury occurred after he
forgot to secure his mother's: seat belt before a

ve. .
McCune also denied allegations by Crowa wit-
nesses that he was observed being rough with his
mother while on their regular walks from their
home in central West Vancouver.

“I never hit her with a can or any coject.” he
told his lawyer Bolton. “

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Joe
Bellows, McCune admitted he had only applied
for one outside job during the Il years he cared for
his mother.

McCune moved in with his mother in 1982,
after leaving his last job.

“I'd been mugged and that ended my career, so
to speak, at the gas station,” he told the court.

McCune told the jury he doubted that staff at a
senior citizens’ home. could look after his mother
as well as he did.:His mother suffered from

Alzheimer’s disease and incontinence. He had to

take her to the bathroom regularly, often every
three hours.

“You lived off her pensicn checks,” Bellows
suggested.

“No, I did not have the opportunity to take an
outside job while taking care of her,’ McCune
replied. The trial continues.

NV care home funded

THE PROVINCIAL govern-
ment is providing $25 million
to the North Vancouver
Kiwanis Care Home Society

$25 million to
build 192-bed

near Deep Cove
Vancouver.

The project is expected to be
completed by the end of 1997.

setting off the Seymour Parkway
in North

& Around Town....... 14
& Bright Lights........12

to build a new 192-bed care
centre for seniors.

“The Parkway Place project
will enable our government to pro-
vide close to 200 seniors on the
North Shore with quality care ina
Spacious, modern, new care
home,” said North Vancouver-
Lonsdale MLA David Schreck.

Schreck made the announce-
ment recently on behalf of Health
Minister Paul Ramsey.

When complete, Parkway Place
will meet all existing multi-level
care guidelines set out by the

seniors’ facility

province.

Multi-level care enables seniors
to remain in the same facility as
their needs change over time.

Parkway Place will also include
a 27-bed speci.:! care wing for res-
idents with .» vor's disease, an
adult day tre} 4 private gar-
den with awirca' . walkway.

The Kiwanis Society wiil fund
a seniors’ drop-in centre to be
located in the facility.

Parkway Place will be built on
1.6 hectares of land in a natural

It will replace the Kiwanis
Lodge in West Vancouver, which is
slated for closure when the
Parkway facility is completed.

The new care home also
replaces the Kiwanis Lynn Manor.

The Lynn Manor facility was
designed to provide low levels of
care to Seniors.

“By working in partnership
with the Kiwanis Society, the B.C.
government will provide a quality
facility in a convenient and attrac-
tive location for the people of the
North Shore,” Schreck said.

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