Former city councillor's murder trial set to begin

Former Napier city councillor Peter Beckett. PHOTO / FILE

A former Napier city councillor will appear before a Canadian court today as a jury is impanelled for his murder trial.

Peter Beckett has pleaded not guilty to murdering his Canadian wife Laura Letts-Beckett after she drowned in what was initially thought to have been a fishing accident on August 18, 2010, when the pair were on a lakeside holiday.

Beckett, 57, was charged a year later after being accused of pushing his wife off a boat at Shelter Bay, northwest of Vancouver in British Columbia.

Jury selection begins today at the Kamloops Supreme Court, while the trial is set for March.

Beckett was also charged with two counts of counselling to commit murder and obstruction of justice after allegedly trying to arrange the murder of five witnesses while he was remanded in custody, including the parents of Ms Letts-Beckett, an Alberta lawyer and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant.

Throughout the case Beckett has fired four lawyers and last year 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," Supreme Court Justice Ian Meiklem retorted.

"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.
Beckett was raised in Hawke's Bay and elected to the Napier City Council in 1998.
He did not seek re-election at the end of his term in 2001.

He moved to Canada about 12 years ago, and later married Ms Letts-Beckett, who was a schoolteacher, the couple then settling in Alberta.

Beckett's New Zealand-based first wife and mother of his four children, Wendy Sail, was also interviewed by police as part of the murder investigation.