Lawyers in sexual assault case involving former Kelowna mayor Colin Basran were back in court Tuesday

Photo: Castanet/file

Criminal proceedings involving former Kelowna mayor Colin Basran continue to wind slowly through the court system.

Lawyers once again appeared via video conference before Judge Andrew Tam for a check-in on the progress of providing disclosure documents pertaining to the case.

Special prosecutor Brock Martland told the court while discussion has been taking place, there are a number of items of outstanding disclosure.

"Some of them are new in the sense that they are being processed by the RCMP to be furnished to the defence," Martland told the court.

"Others arise from requests that have been made by the defence."

He expects those to be turned over to the defence within the next few weeks.

When asked by Judge Tam if the expectation disclosure would be complete by then, Martland replied, "my hope is it will."

Martland and lawyer Lydia Chu, representing defence counsel Richard Peck, proposed returning to court May 2.

Judge Tam suggested going back to the initial appearance courtroom to determine the status of disclosure.

"I suspect the reason you are before me is that there may have been some concerns about the pace of which the file is making its way through the system," said Tam.

"I think it makes some sense to return to initial appearance court. If the disclosure is complete by then I would suspect...that your client and Mr. Peck will be able to come to some decisions about how the matter is going to proceed from there and it can make its way through to completion of arraignment and on to next steps."

Basran is charged with one count of sexual assault stemming from an incident alleged to have taken place May 11, 2022 while he was still the sitting mayor.

It wasn't until Dec. 7 that the BC Prosecution Service announced Basran had been charged.

A plea has not yet been entered in the case.