Toronto police are warning the public that a 45-year-old man has gone missing from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health — at least the third time in July that a CAMH resident has left the psychiatric hospital’s care after previously being found not criminally responsible for a crime.

Anthony Murdock was last seen at 2:20 p.m. Tuesday near CAMH, around Queen St. W. and Ossington Ave., and was captured on surveillance cameras not far away later in the day, according to police.

In a news release Tuesday night, police said they are “concerned for the safety of the public.”

“(Murdock was) on an accompanied pass, and he walked away from his escort,” Const. Robert Reid told the Star.

Murdock has a long history of sexual offences against strangers, and was also previously convicted on counts of forcible confinement and sexual assault.

According to documents from the Ontario Review Board — which conducts annual assessments of those found not criminally responsible — all of the offences involved unknown women and, in one case, at least one young girl.

“It appears that given the constellation of diagnoses that he has, that he is predisposed to aggressive and disinhibited sexual behaviours,” the board wrote following Murdock’s last review in December 2018.

The board said Murdock has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and borderline intellectual functioning, and that he has a history of substance abuse. It deemed him a “significant risk to the public” at his last review and ordered him to live in CAMH’s forensic unit.

Reid said Murdock was found not criminally responsible for a sexual offence in 2002.

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“I am confident that Toronto police are doing everything possible to find this patient which is why they notified the public as quickly as possible and have warned that they are concerned for the safety of the public,” Mayor John Tory said in a statement Wednesday.

Records from the Ontario Review Board indicate Murdock has a lengthy criminal history dating back to at least 1998.

His various convictions include one count of sexual assault in Surrey, B.C. Board records show he approached two high school students, bit one on the neck and sexually assaulted her. Documents show he reappeared at the students’ high school days later.

Murdock was back in Ontario by the following year and was convicted of various indecent acts in the Greater Toronto Area, board documents show.

In 2001, he was convicted of forcible confinement after approaching a young girl in a Mississauga shopping mall with her grandmother.

“Mr. Murdock explained that the girl looked like an ‘angel,’” the board documents state. “He walked into the store and placed the girl on his shoulders and spun her around until her grandmother yelled at him to put her down.”

Months after being convicted in that incident, records show Murdock approached an unknown woman walking on a street, whistled at her and asked her to come over to him. When she did not comply, he followed her and sexually assaulted her, documents show.

He was found not criminally responsible on the ensuing sexual assault charge in March 2002.

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Murdock had previously lived in the community, but was admitted to CAMH in late 2017. During that time, board documents show one female patient complained about inappropriate contact.

He was briefly released to a supervised mental health residence but was ordered detained at CAMH once more last December.

Murdock is described as Black, six-foot-one and 200 pounds. He has a shaved head, and was last seen wearing a burgundy cotton top with blue jeans, said the release.

Anyone who spots Murdock should not approach him, but call 911, police said.

Just last week, Canada’s largest psychiatric hospital announced that it has launched an external review of its procedures around the privileges it grants to forensic patients.

The move came after a mentally ill man out on a day pass fled the country on an international flight. Zhebin Cong, a forensic patient who earlier in July managed to board an international flight while out on an unaccompanied public pass from CAMH.

Cong, 48, was found not criminally responsible for second-degree murder in the 2014 death of his roommate, who he killed with a meat cleaver. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been a patient at CAMH since he was given the ‘not criminally responsible’ designation. The case sparked outrage

Cong’s escape, reported to the public nearly two weeks after it happened, drew widespread public criticism and even the ire of Premier Doug Ford, who demanded answers from officials with both the police and the treatment centre.

Also in July, Ahmed Sualim, who was found not criminally responsible for a string of 2012 armed robberies and thefts, escaped the custody of CAMH for a few hours. The 27-year-old was also deemed to pose a significant risk to the public.

Tory noted the external review at CAMH, as well as two reviews by the Toronto police in the wake of the Cong case.

“Hopefully this will lead to immediate changes about how the police notify the public about these incidents,” Tory said.

“In the end, the public expect us all to work together to get answers to all of these questions so that they in turn can have confidence in the system and know these very troubling incidents will not be repeated,” Tory added.