Murder accused in row with judge

Peter Beckett is charged with murdering his Canadian wife. Photo/Supplied

A former Napier city councillor charged with murdering his Canadian wife in 2010 remains in custody in British Columbia awaiting the setting of a date for a trial delayed by his own difficulties with lawyers and plans to conduct his own defence.

Peter Beckett, 57, is in Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, inland northeast of Vancouver.It is hoped a trial date will be scheduled when he makes his next appearance in court on Monday, a courts official in Kamloops told Hawke's Bay Today.

The matter was adjourned last week after an application by defence counsel appointed earlier this year amid a courtroom debate between a judge and Beckett over whether Beckett could represent himself.

A New Zealander raised in Hawke's Bay, he was elected to the Napier council in 1998, and did not seek re-election at the end of the term in 2001.

He moved to Canada about 10 years ago, later marrying Canadian school teacher Laura Letts.

They lived north of Edmonton and were on holiday when she died in what was initially thought to have been a fishing mishap on a lake near Revelstoke on August 18, 2010.

It was a year before Beckett was charged with first-degree murder.

However, proceedings were delayed when he was further charged in 2012 with offences relating to allegedly trying, while on remand in prison, to arrange the murder of five people associated with the case.

Last month Beckett challenged a judge's appointment of defence counsel by saying: "You don't think I have the intellect to represent myself." After the judge told him "it's not about intellect, it's about knowledge and expertise", Beckett was reported to have replied: "You think I'm lacking in those?"

"Well, yes," said Supreme Court Justice Ian Meiklem.

"It would be like me walking into Nasa headquarters and saying: I'm going to take over this rocket launch now.

"I'm not equipped to do it, no matter what my intellect might be," the judge said.