Child murderer Allan Schoenborn will not be allowed escorted leaves from a B.C. psychiatric hospital after withdrawing his request out of respect for his ex-wife.

At a B.C. Review Board hearing Thursday, Schoenborn's lawyer Scott Hicks read out a letter from his client, expressing concern for his ex-wife Darcie Clarke.

"I wish no further hardships towards Darcie. Her stability is paramount," Schoenborn said in the letter, dated Wednesday.

"I learned of her whereabouts and her poor condition through TV coverage. I am seeking a strict custody order for those reasons."

The review board granted that request after a brief discussion. Schoenborn, who killed his three children in 2008, will have a chance to apply again for escorted day passes in 12 months.

Schoenborn did not appear at Thursday's hearing. Hicks says his client has been moved to a secure area of the hospital after being threatened and seriously assaulted following media reports about his last hearing.

The killer was granted the right to apply for supervised visits from the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on April 6, but a provincial review panel chose to reassess that decision after learning Clarke is now living with a cousin in the area.

That cousin, Stacy Galt, told reporters after Thursday's hearing that she was happy about the review board's decision but angry that Schoenborn was allowed to skip the hearing.

"He robbed me of everything. I was so furious. I wanted to see him, I wanted to tell him that I was there standing up for Darcie," Galt said.

"He should have been there."

She added that she was pleased to hear that Schoenborn had been beaten up in hospital.

"He just doesn't deserve to be where he is. He deserves to be in jail," she said.

Schoenborn has been at the Port Coquitlam hospital since a judge ruled last year that he was not criminally responsible for the triple murder.He has been allowed out of the hospital twice so far to visit the dentist in February and attend an eye appointment last year.

Clarke's brother Mike told reporters that he was also pleased that Schoenborn will be staying out of the community -- at least for now.

"I'm happy that they're going to keep him in there one more year, but it's a lot of malarkey what we had to go through to keep him in there," he said.

The mayors of Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam both attended Thursday's hearing. Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said that he was relieved by the board's decision.

"We can breathe again because the concerns of our community were enormous," he said.

"Of course, that means a year from now, this victim and the family will be dragged through this all over again."

A year ago, the review board found that Schoenborn posed a "significant threat" to his ex-wife and was unfit for public outings.

"He remains, to some extent, obsessed by or fixated on Ms. Clarke," the board's 2010 decision reads.

"The accused indeed demonstrates ongoing and possibly new symptoms of psychosis and paranoia."

Clarke discovered their children Kaitlynne, Max and Cordon dead in their Merritt home on April 6, 2008. Schoenborn slashed 10-year-old Kaitlynne's throat and suffocated eight-year-old Max and five-year-old Cordon on a couch in the family room.

Schoenborn said that he killed the three children to prevent them from being molested.

Schoenborn has been in and out of mental hospitals in Alberta and B.C. since 1987 and has a lengthy criminal record for violence.