Disclosure issue delays murder trial
Concerns about disclosure relating to a key witness in the Jonathan Bacon murder case have prompted further delays in the lengthy trial.
Cross-examination of the former gangster who testified on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week in Kelowna has been pushed to Aug. 28 so the defence has time to review documents that have yet to be disclosed by the Crown.
“I was surprised by the information I received from my co-counsel when I arrived regarding the state of disclosure regarding the current witness,” said defence lawyer Alan Gold on Tuesday. “It’s an important, significant witness for Mr. (Jason) McBride, and I’m not going to be put in a position where the court of appeal later says ‘well, Mr. Gold, you went ahead and cross-examined him, and so you can’t complain now.’ I don’t think your lordship has a real appreciation of the sorry state of the disclosure regarding this key witness, and I’m not in a position . . . to let the Crown get away with it.”
McBride, Jujhar Khun-Khun and Michael Jones are on trial for the murder of Bacon and the attempted murder of Hells Angel Larry Amero and two women who were also in a Porsche Cayenne that was shot up the afternoon of Aug. 14, 2011, outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand hotel.
Justice Allan Betton agreed to allow the delay in cross-examination of the witness, but he did not want the next two weeks to be wasted time.
“I’m not going to adjourn a trial after having three weeks down in an effort to allow the parties to have further dialogue to see if they can reach a consensus on that,” said Betton.
On Thursday, Crown counsel David Ruse outlined the list of documents that had yet to be disclosed and the plan to get that information.
“In response to the report on the current state of disclosure, we had the police go through and give us an update as to where exactly things stand now,” said Ruse.
Most of the outstanding documents were on track to be disclosed to the defence by Monday, he said.
One of the outstanding matters involves six BlackBerry mobile phones that were sent to an RCMP lab in Ottawa for analysis.
“They are encrypted, and police are checking into if that analysis has been done,” said Ruse. “They were not able to crack that encryption for a long time. There is a possibility for a solution, but I spoke to the investigative team this morning, and they were not yet able to ascertain if the solution was viable for those devices.”
Ruse said he hoped to find out the status of the BlackBerry phones by the end of the day.
Court is scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday to discuss matters relating to disclosure.
The next Crown witness is set to testify either Tuesday or Wednesday.