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[This version of the report has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles

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On 23 October 2007 Peter Small of The Star reported “Crown fears for case as Bain retrial delayed”.

Urges newly appointed judge to move quickly: `Witnesses get old'. It's in the best interests of the family of murdered University of Toronto student Elizabeth Bain to have the retrial of the man accused of killing her resume as quickly as possible after being delayed by the promotion of its previous judge, a prosecutor says. "When delays happen it's very difficult for them," assistant Crown attorney Philip Kotanen said yesterday. Kotanen told Superior Court Justice David McCombs that any further setbacks in the trial of Robert Baltovich, 42, could harm the Crown's case. "Witnesses get old. It's a bit of an enhanced danger," he said.

Three hundred potential jurors gathered in the courthouse on Oct. 15 but were told to go home because the judge on the case, David Watt, had been promoted to the Ontario Court of Appeal.  That necessitated the naming of a new judge. McCombs stepped in the next day.  It now looks like a new jury won't be chosen until January at the earliest.

Bain, 22, disappeared on June 19, 1990. Her body has never been found. Baltovich, her boyfriend, was convicted in 1992 of second-degree murder and served eight years of a life term before being released on bail pending appeal. In 2004 the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction, saying he did not receive a fair trial, and ordered that he be retried. Yesterday both Kotanen and lead defence lawyer James Lockyer agreed to abide by the half dozen pre-trail motions already ruled on by Watt in the past few months. That leaves at least six still outstanding.

Watt was set to rule on them on Oct. 15, but his promotion intervened. They will now be reargued before McCombs. The first motion arguments start Nov. 6. Lockyer said he wants to argue a seventh motion because Kotanen has repeatedly said that the Crown has a new theory of the murder.

Outside court, Kotanen declined comment on whether he has a new theory.

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