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John pleads not guilty to historic sex charges

Indigenous leader Ed John pleaded not guilty Wednesday to sex-related charges dating back more than 45 years and chose to have the case heard in B.C. Supreme Court before a jury.
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Indigenous leader Ed John pleaded not guilty Wednesday to sex-related charges dating back more than 45 years and chose to have the case heard in B.C. Supreme Court before a jury.

John made the court known of his decisions during an arraignment hearing in Prince George provincial court.

The matter was adjourned to July 16 before a judicial case manager to fix a date for a pretrial conference and preliminary inquiry, which is held to test the strength of the Crown's case.

John faces four counts of rape - the term then used for what is now known as sexual assault -alleged to have occurred between March 1 and Sept. 15, 1974 in Prince George, Cluculz Lake and Fraser Lake, and involving one person, whose name is protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

The charges were first sworn on Nov. 8, 2019, but thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, the matter had been adjourned five times as of Wednesday. John took the hearing in by phone in accordance with measures invoked due to the pandemic.

John is a former leader of the First Nations Summit and former B.C. cabinet minister. He is also a hereditary chief of Tl'azt'en Nation in northern B.C. and a lawyer who holds honorary doctor of laws degrees from the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Victoria.