Kiwi faces trial in Canada over wife's death

Beckett's legal travails have seen him fire four lawyers in three years, at a cost of more than $110,000 to Canadian taxpayers.

Prosecutors allege former city councillor pushed wife from boat and she drowned

The giant frame of New Zealander Peter Beckett will squeeze into the dock in Canada's highest court this week, when jury selection starts before he stands trial for murder, accused of killing his wife. Beckett, a former Napier City Council member, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Laura Letts Beckett, who drowned in 2010.

The death was initially thought to have been an accident, but Beckett, 57, was charged a year later.

Prosecutors will claim he pushed her from a boat at Shelter Bay, in a national park near Revelstoke, British Columbia.

Beckett was later charged with plotting to kill five Crown witnesses including Letts Beckett's parents, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant and an Alberta lawyer, while in custody.

Jury selection begins tomorrow at the Kamloops Supreme Court, and the trial is set for March.

Beckett's legal travails have seen him fire four lawyers in three years, at a cost of more than $110,000 to Canadian taxpayers.

He has also filed an abuse-of-process claim, and has represented himself at his most recent court appearances.

Beckett has abused and insulted a Supreme Court justice, and been accused of smuggling evidence - computer documents and DVDs containing evidence against him - out of court by posting it from the courthouse, and then refused to return it despite being ordered to.

Laura Letts Beckett died in Canada in August 2010. Her husband Peter has been charged with her murder. Photo / Facebook

At a pre-trial hearing in June, Beckett also claimed he had been the subject of racism.

"I'm a Kiwi," Beckett said when asked how he had been the subject of racism.

"Do you want me to speak my tongue?" Beckett then asked, before "blurting out a sentence in a foreign language", the Kamloops This Week reported.

The investigation reached New Zealand, as Beckett's first wife and mother of his four children, Wendy Sail, was interviewed by police.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton remembers Beckett. "It was hard to miss him at six foot eight."

Dalton said Beckett was not remembered fondly in Hawke's Bay.

"We could certainly do without having 'Napier City councillor' put in front of his name every time, but that's inevitable."

Beckett, who recently became a grandfather, is estranged from his family, and before his arrest had not spoken to his ex-wife or children for seven years.