A campground manager has told a Canadian court he warned staff to avoid former Napier city councillor Peter Beckett after an intimidating encounter a few nights before Beckett is alleged to have killed his wife while boating on a lake.
Shelter Bay provincial park manager Colin Titsworth was giving evidence in Beckett's murder trial. Beckett, 60, is charged with murdering Alberta schoolteacher Laura Letts-Beckett who died on August 18, 2010, in what was initially reported as a drowning in Upper Arrow Lake, about 630km east of Vancouver.
Beckett, who grew up in Hawke's Bay and served a single three-year term on the Napier City Council in 1998-2001 before moving to Canada and marrying the Canadian national he had met when he was running a tour business between Napier and Cape Kidnappers, denies the charge.
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The Daily Courier in Kelowna, where the trial is being held before Justice Alison Beames and a jury in the British Columbia Supreme Court, reported Titsworth told the court he met the Becketts in 2008.