A man has pleaded not criminally responsible to four charges in connection with a home invasion and attack on an elderly couple in Selkirk last year.

On Tuesday, Justin Bannab appeared in court to face multiple charges including aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault and break and enter relating to an attack that happened in a Selkirk home on April 3, 2016.

The Crown and defence agreed on much of what happened that night, but Bannab's lawyers are arguing he isn't responsible for what he did.

Tuesday morning, Crown attorney Chantal Boutin read an agreed statement of facts. The victims' identities cannot be revealed due to a publication ban on their names.

Boutin said Bannab walked into the home around 7 p.m. through an unlocked screen door and found an 88-year-old man sitting alone at his kitchen table.

At first, the man thought Bannab, then 22, was the paper boy and asked why he was there. When he asked him to leave Bannab knocked him to the floor. He beat the victim with a broom stick he found in the house until the man's wife started to scream from the bedroom.

The victim's wife, 85, who uses a wheelchair, had gone to bed for the night but could hear what was happening in the kitchen. When Bannab heard the yelling, he found the woman in another room, dragged her out of her bed and into the living room.

The man dragged himself into a bedroom to get to a phone and called RCMP. He said he could hear his wife yelling. Shortly after, Bannab went to a nearby home and told the person who answered the door to call police because "he had done something bad."

He told the man he would be waiting in the street. Officers found him there shortly after, kneeling in the middle of the street with both his hands in the air.

Nearby was a bloody pile of clothing and a bloody rolling pin missing its handle. The handle was discovered in the couple's home, Boutin said.

The couple were rushed to hospital with serious injuries.

The man had deep lacerations to his face, a concussion and many cuts, Boutin said. He was released from hospital into a personal care home.

His wife had a skull fracture and part of her scalp was missing. She also suffered cuts on her arm and foot, as well as genital injuries inflicted when she was sexually assaulted.

She was rushed into emergency surgery to take care of the skull fracture,and did recover from the injuries sustained in the attack. However, she was never able to leave the hospital because of complications with diabetes, and she died from the complications four months after the attack.

There was a huge hole in her forehead as if it had been caved in. - Leif Svendsen

Tuesday morning, RCMP officers Leif Svendsen and Josee Neudorf testified. Svendsen was the first on the scene and said when he opened the door he saw a woman lying on the floor in a nightgown.

"I could see some blood on the floor behind her," he said. "There was a huge hole in her forehead as if it had been caved in."

He said he saw a trail of blood leading to a bedroom and that's where he found her husband, propped up against a bed, covered in blood, holding a phone.

Both Boutin and Bannab's lawyer Matt Gould spent much of their time asking about Bannab's mental state when he was arrested. Svendsen said Bannab seemed calm, co-operative and connected with what was happening when he came in to swab the man for DNA that night.

Neudorf also testified she found him calm and co-operative when she found him covered in blood on a nearby street that night. Gould asked whether Neudorf would describe him as being in a praying position or if he was talking to the sky or looking up.

She said no, and that she considered his position to be one of surrender.

Both officers were repeatedly questioned on whether they had investigated Bannab's mental health. Neither had.

Neudorf was also questioned on whether she had noticed "hundreds" of old scars from cuts and burns on Bannab's arms. She did not recall seeing them but did say his forearms were covered in blood.

In the afternoon, two other officers testified about Bannab's state during and after his arrest.

One officer testified that when he went to fingerprint Bannab a week or so later, the accused was wearing a suit that corrections officers use for suicidal inmates. The officer said Banab asked whether his charges would affect his application to become an RCMP officer.

When Gould asked the Const. Randal Metzler whether he thought that was an odd question for Bannab to ask considering the gravity of his charges, Metzler said no.

Metzler said he believed it was a rational question, and that other individuals who had charges as or more serious than Bannab had asked him similar questions in the past.

On Wednesday, a video of Bannab's statement to police will be played for the court. The trial resumes at 10 a.m.