The perjury trial of former Mountie Benjamin “Monty” Robinson will not get under way until November.
A number of trial delays for Robinson and the three other RCMP officers also accused of perjuring themselves at the Dziekanski inquiry have been caused by problems in getting legal funding from the RCMP.
The first of the four separate jury trials — for Const. Bill Bentley — is set for June 3 in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
That trial is expected to run for four weeks before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan.
Robinson’s four-week trial is scheduled for Nov. 18, followed by Const. Gerry Rundel on Jan. 13, 2014, and Const. Kiwesi Millington on Feb. 11.
The charges relate to the testimony of the officers at the public inquiry into Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski’s Tasering death at the Vancouver airport in 2007.
Last year, Robinson was found guilty of wilfully attempting to obstruct justice in connection with a 2008 accident in which the vehicle he was driving struck and killed 21-year-old Orion Hutchinson of Delta.
At the time of the crash, Robinson was driving home from a Halloween party, where he had consumed five beers. He left the scene of the accident to rush his two children home and gulped two shots of vodka.
The off-duty officer later claimed he was calming his nerves but the judge found the consumption of vodka was a deliberate attempt to mislead investigators, since Robinson knew drinking alcohol after a crash would make it difficult to determine intoxication.
Robinson received a 12-month conditional sentence which the Crown decided not to appeal.
Several other recent high-profile cases involving Mounties accused of crimes in B.C. have also run into problems caused by legal funding issues involving the RCMP.
Comments