A Montreal mother who abandoned her three-year-old girl in a rural Ontario field in June has been declared not criminally responsible for the crime.

Quebec court Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud ruled on Monday that the 34-year-old woman could not be held criminally responsible by way of mental disorder. She had been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm and unlawful abandonment of a child.

The court heard testimony on whether the woman — whose name cannot be published to protect the identity of her daughter — should remain detained or be released while she receives medical treatment for schizoaffective disorder, which involves symptoms of schizophrenia and another mood disorder.

Marie-Michèle Boulanger, a psychiatrist who evaluated the mother, concluded in a 48-page report that

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