A new trial for murder-accused former Napier City councillor Peter Beckett has been set to start in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Kamloops, Canada, on May 15.
Beckett was charged with murder a year after his second wife Laura Letts-Beckett died on August 18, 2010, during the couple's fishing excursion on Upper Arrow Lake, near Revelstoke, about 560 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
She was reported at the time of the death to have drowned.
Beckett, now aged 60, is accused of killing his wife, a Canadian schoolteacher, to profit from her inheritance, insurance and their house.
But he denies the charge, along with others alleging he plotted to kill five would-be Crown witnesses in the trial, including his wife's parents, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant, and a lawyer.