Zinck’s trial slogs through second day

HALIFAX — By the lunch break of Trevor Zinck’s second trial day, the Crown attorney stood up and asked the judge if he could speed things up a bit.

The trial had still only heard from one witness. The defense’s cross-examination had taken Monday afternoon and much of Tuesday.

Defense lawyer, Lyle Howe, told media outside the courtroom that he regretted the slow pace.

“We thought we’d be pretty much done cross-examination by now,” Howe said. “Turned out that it took approaching three times as much time as I would have thought it would.”

The main reason for the delay is the document-by-document discussion on rules governing Nova Scotia MLA expenses. At one point, the judge called a recess to allow the witness to read a 424-page document.

The agreed statement of facts shows former NDP MLA Trevor Zinck submitted duplicates of cheques made out to various organizations. Crown and defense agree those organizations didn’t receive all of the money listed on the cheques, even through it was reimbursed in full to Zinck.

Howe has stayed quiet about exactly what his defense would be, but hints it will focus on whether Zinck intended to defraud the taxpayer-funded system. To be proven guilty of fraud, both the act and the intention must be proven by the Crown.

Zinck himself didn’t have much to say to media today, except to thank his supporters.

“‘I’ve very humbled by the amount of support I’ve been given,” he said. “I’m looking forward to progressing and getting through next week.”

This is day two of the ten-day trial.