Former Napier councillor Peter Beckett's second trial to start today

ACCUSED: Former Napier city councillor Peter Beckett, pictured in 1998. Photograph supplied.

The second trial of murder-accused former Napier City councillor Peter Beckett is set to begin today at the British Columbia Supreme Court in Kelowna, BC.

A first trial lasting three months ended in Kamloops in April last year with a hung jury, Beckett later claiming it had been 11-1 in favour of acquittal.

On August 18, 2010, Beckett's wife, Canadian school teacher Laura Letts-Beckett, drowned on Upper Arros Lake, 560km northeast of Vancouver, during what was initially reported as a fishing trip.

Twelve months later, Beckett was arrested and charged with murder.

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.

The Crown had claimed Beckett murdered his wife to profit from an inheritance, insurance and their house.

Beckett denied the charge. Following several months of hearings in 2015 related to admissibility of evidence, his trial started in Kamloops last January and included his claims that Ms Letts-Beckett had been suicidally depressed and either committed suicide or drowned accidentally.

The trial ended after three months, with the jury unable to reach verdicts, and Beckett was ordered to undergo a new trial.

Raised in Hastings, Beckett was running a business taking tour groups from Napier to Cape Kidnappers when he became a Napier councillor in 1998.

He served a three-year term but he did not stand for re-election and moved to Canada, where he married the then Ms Betts, whom he reportedly met while operating the tours.

The trial will commence at 10am BC time with the jury selection and trial scheduled to follow.