A B.C. Supreme Court judge has made an interim order requiring Kamloops This Week to remove two online postings in a three-part series about an alleged murder.
Justice Ian Meiklem made the order on Friday after Crown prosecutor Joel Gold argued some of the material in the stories could prejudice potential jurors and impact Peter Beckett’s right to a fair trial.
Earlier this week, Meiklem made another order prohibiting KTW from publishing information from certain documents — disclosure documents provided to Beckett by the Crown — based on the same concerns for Beckett’s right to a fair trial.
According to KTW editor Christopher Foulds, the newspaper complied with the June 30 order, which stated, in its entirety:
“No information contained in any disclosure materials provided to the accused, Mr. Beckett, by Crown counsel on Police file Nos. 201E-11204, 2012-6886 or court files 21595 (Salmon Arm), 89599 (Port Coquitlam), 96100 (Kamloops) or 96101 (Kamloops) shall be published in any document or broadcast or transmitted in any way unless it is taken as evidence in court at the trial of the accused before the jury.”
Foulds said KTW respected the order and published an article that drew from sources other than the disclosure documents.
“Upon consulting our lawyer, we complied with the order to the letter as we did not publish any information from disclosure documents,” Foulds said. “We did not oppose the order and instead relied on information gathered via interviews with Beckett and from a pre-trial conference, content from which was not, and is not, subject to a publication ban.”
A full hearing is expected to take place next week to determine whether the second and third parts of the Beckett series can be re-posted online.
Beckett is charged with one count of first-degree murder and is also accused of conspiring to kill five Crown witnesses. His wife, Laura Letts, drowned in Upper Arrow Lake in 2010. Beckett was arrested and charged with her murder a year later.
A date for his trial before a B.C. Supreme Court jury has not been set, but pre-trial hearings to determine the admissibility of evidence are slated to begin in September.
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