Peter Beckett will go to trial for the murder of his wife Laura Letts Beckett starting Jan. 6, 2015 in Kamloops Superior Court.
Crown prosecutor Will Burrows said Beckett is in the midst of a series of monthly pre-trial hearings, with the next one scheduled for Aug. 13, in advance of the trial that is slated to take several months.
“They’ve set aside six months for the trial,” he said.
Topics discussed during pre-trial hearings differ depending on the case, Burrows said. In Beckett’s case, all he was able to say is being discussed is the disclosure of the police investigation to Beckett.
He added the judge has been checking in regularly on the progress of the hearings.
Prior to the pre-trial hearings commencing, Beckett had been fighting to be given a hard copy of the Crown’s disclosure package, which outlines the Crown’s case against him.
Burrows said the result of that application was Beckett was granted permission to have access to only certain parts of the disclosure package in hard-copy form — reports to Crown and all the indices to the police documents and materials.
All other components would only be provided electronically, but Burrows said that did not preclude Beckett from applying to have more of the package handed over in hard-copy format.
Beckett is accused of murder in relation to the drowning death of his wife, a former teacher at Dapp School, who died while vacationing in Shelter Bay Provincial Park near Revelstoke, B.C. in August 2010.
Police initially said the death resulted from her not wearing a life jacket and not being able to swim, but arrested Beckett on first-degree murder charges on Aug. 12, 2011.
His arrest and subsequent legal proceedings have generated a great deal of interest from media outlets in New Zealand, as well. Beckett is a former Napier City councillor, having serving one term from 1998 to 2001 before moving to Canada.
He also faces two charges of counselling to commit murder and obstruction of justice.
Those new charges come following a four-month investigation called Project E-PEDLAR that began in August 2012 and focused on allegations that Beckett was “attempting to influence the outcome” of criminal proceedings relating to the murder charge for which he has been in custody since August 2011.
The intended victims are people whom the Crown would rely on as witnesses at the murder trial. None of the intended victims have come to any harm.
