Photo: file photo A schizophrenic man is on trial in Kelowna for slashing an RCMP officer's face A schizophrenic man who's accused of the attempted murder of a Kelowna RCMP officer told the court that a demonic voice had taken control of his body when he slashed the officer in the face with a knife. After beginning last September, the trial for Richard McCrae, 42, resumed in Kelowna court Thursday, with McCrae taking the stand in his own defence. McCrae is accused of slashing Const. Jason Tymofichuk's face with a knife and trying to grab his gun during a struggle outside the Ellis Place supportive housing development on the evening of March 27, 2022. The officer was lucky to keep his eye, and still suffers from nerve damage. The altercation began after Const. Tymofichuk responded to the supportive housing development to help staff move a woman's tent that was set up in the parking lot. McCrae, who was previously described as a “gentle giant,” objected to the move. 'Like sitting here with the devil' Thursday, McCrae testified that despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia in his early 30s, he's dealt with symptoms since his teenage years, which included delusions and hearing voices. He said these voices got more severe in his 30s, and he now deals with them every day. “I hear different voices from demons to angels to ghosts to celebrities to guardian spirits. It's a constant barrage of noise that I can't really get away from,” he said, adding that the demonic voices once made him repeatedly punch his own head. “It's like I'm possessed and it starts striking me and I have to regain myself to get away from it. It's brutal.” He likened the experience to a “body snatching” or “having someone else in your brain,” noting that it's more likely to occur when he's feeling strong emotions. “I try and keep a meditative state and not have too many emotions,” he said, “Most often I can control them, to a point.” Several times throughout his testimony Thursday, McCrae' speech would slow down and he'd appear to mumble. He would later tell the court that the voices had taken over briefly. “Like right now I'm even fighting it myself. So it's not very fair for me to be able to sit here. I swore on the bible, but the voices in my head didn't necessarily swear on the bible, and they're going to f*** with me, sorry, excuse my language, they're going to mess with me and I'm losing control of my speech you know. I'm fighting the voices right now just to get my story out here,” he said at one point, before Justice Steven Wilson stood the court down for a break. Later in his testimony, he said it felt like the devil was speaking through him “I can't communicate what's going on. Are you getting that? I'm broken in the brain, it doesn't work that well anymore,” he said. “The problem is, the other voices are answering for me, things I wouldn't answer, so it's kind of weird. It's like sitting here with the devil and have him talk for me.” Attempted to take own life McCrae was using methamphetamine “fairly regularly” at the time, as a form of self medication, and he had smoked it several times on the day of the incident. “I thought it was helping, it would put me at ease with the voices,” he said. “I haven't smoked it in numerous years but it's like a calming focus.” He was also receiving monthly injections of schizophrenia medication from staff at Ellis Place at the time, but he testified that he would regularly forget to take the pills he'd been prescribed. He said he doesn't remember much from his altercation with Const. Tymofichuk due to his psychological state that night, but he said he was hearing many “demonic voices.” “I was so gone then, I don't know what I wanted ... I was walking around, out of my mind, because I was having an episode. A bad day, we'll call it,” he said. “The voices were very potent, I was not well. It was a weird day. I was just trying to think back to what happened that day and I was in the parking lot doing pirouettes, it was crazy.” He said he remembers Const. Tymofichuk first arriving at the scene and being polite to him, but his memory “kind of gets squirrelly from there.” He said he “came to” while he was on top of the officer, holding the officer's wrists. This was after he had slashed the officer's face, but he said he didn't notice the injuries at the time. “I was on the cop, trying to, I guess, to get the gun when I woke up, and then I said 'Oh my god.' I don't know what I said but I got up and walked away,” he said. “That's when the voice takes off, it leaves me, and I got control of my body again ... I was in a deeply delusional state.” After he got off Const. Tymofichuk, McCrae sliced his own throat with his knife. He told the court that when he had realized he had attacked the officer, it was “the last straw” for him. “I was appalled at what had happened and I knew the consequences would be steep and I was horrified that I had done it and I had attempted [to take] my life numerous times in the past and I just felt that the situation warranted it,” he said. Not criminally responsible? McCrae's defence counsel Donna Turko will likely be seeking a ruling that McCrae should be found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. Such a determination has a high bar, but even if Justice Wilson makes this ruling, McCrae won't be released from custody. An offender who's found not criminally responsible then falls under the jurisdiction of the Review Board, which will determine if he needs to be held in a psychiatric hospital. The Review Board holds annual hearings to assess an offender's mental health and determine if further detention is necessary. A doctor is scheduled to provide expert evidence for the defence about McCrae's mental health on Friday. The trial is expected to wrap up next week. McCrae remains in custody through his trial. Tried to get help McCrae previously lived in Ontario, where he testified he had tried to check into “numerous” psych wards to get help, but he “failed to succeed.” He moved to Kelowna in 2020, when he was 37, and was homeless through the pandemic. “I can't work, I can't do anything, I don't date, I don't go out and socialize with people,” he said. “I basically would just skateboard, longboard, because it tends to calm me down because it's focusing, and then I just sit in my room and talk to myself or do art.” Some of McCrae's art involves carving wood. The knife he used to cut Const. Tymofichuk was his carving knife, and he said he always kept it on him.