The timeline of how delays led to a court case being tossed by a judge

September 2013: The man’s lawyer withdraws from the case and the original date for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 25 is pushed back by a year to Nov. 3, 2014.

Nov. 3, 2014: The preliminary hearing is held. A trial date is set for four days, beginning Nov. 23, 2015.

November 2015: The case is delayed for three months because a witness is unavailable after the death of a family member. The Crown and defence agree there is a need to resolve whether the accused’s charter rights were breached before the trial can proceed.

Feb. 15-17, 2016: The charter application is heard and dismissed. The court schedules three days for a trial, starting Oct. 31, 2016. The accused fires his lawyer, pushing the trial dates back to May 16, 2017.

May 16, 2017: The trial proceeds.

May 23, 2017: The judge finds the man guilty on both counts.

June 5, 2017: The man applies for a stay of proceedings because of unreasonable delay, citing the Jordan ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.

June 9, 2017: Justice William Grist of the B.C. Supreme Court grants the man a stay of proceedings, blaming 38 of the more than 60 months of delay on complacency in the court system.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

The timeline of how delays led to a court case being tossed by a judge

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