The second trial of murder-accused former Napier City councillor Peter Beckett will go ahead after the failure of a Canadian court defence application to stay the prosecution.
The trial will start in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Kelowna, B.C., on August 21, seven years and three days after the death of Beckett's wife died in what was initially reported as a fishing trip drowning on a lake.
A first trial lasting three months ended in Kamloops in April last year with jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Beckett later claiming it had been 11-1 in favour of acquittal.
His wife, Canadian school teacher Laura Letts-Beckett died on August 18, 2010, on Upper Arrow Lake, near Revelstoke and about 560km northeast of Vancouver.
Beckett, now 60 and who grew-up in Hastings and served a single three-year term on the Napier council after his election in 1998, was arrested and charged with murder 12 months after the death.
Remanded in custody, he was later charged with plotting to kill five trial witnesses - Mrs Letts-Beckett's parents, a cousin, a lawyer and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant, based on claims made by a fellow inmate turned state informer.
