Mental illness no excuse says mother

“Once the crime has been committed, I still believe they need to be held responsible, otherwise what sort of a message are you sending?”

Experts anticipate Li’s lawyers, who have said they don’t dispute Li is responsible for McLean’s death, will try to prove that Li was not criminally responsible for his actions due to mental health issues.

If successful, Li would end up with no criminal record and have the chance to eventually be released back into the community, if given the green light by a mental health review board.

“Somebody’s responsible for killing my son, and it was a very, very horrific murder,” De Delley said.

“I don’t think that this person should then be told, ‘Well, you’re not responsible,’ and then end up with no criminal record for it.

“That’s ridiculous.”

The grieving mother added that, for her, there is no satisfactory punishment under the current system, and the “inadequate” laws need to be changed.

“I truly think if you take a life, you should lose your freedom for the rest of your life,” she said from her Manitoba home.

“As a society, we all bear the responsibility to protect each other from individuals like this, and the bigger crime here would be if I just shut up and said nothing and it were to happen again.”

Despite the pain of losing her son, De Delley said she will use her position to raise awareness about the issue of the not-criminally-responsible defence.

“It would be way easier to pull down shades and pull up the covers and wallow into myself, but I don’t have that luxury,” she said.

“I can’t do that, otherwise my son’s life was for nothing,” she said.

“If they give him NCR (not criminally responsible) … and then he doesn’t have a record, what does that say about my son’s life?”

Li’s trial is expected to wrap up on Thursday.