Kidnapping charges stand despite long trial delays, Calgary judge rules

Four men charged in a Calgary kidnapping have failed in their bid to have the charges thrown out because of what they argued to be an unreasonable delay in getting the case to trial.

Lawyers for four men had tried to convince a judgeto let their clients walk free on Monday,arguing the four-year delay from charge to trial was in violation of their clients' constitutional rights.

HassonWilson, Ivan Willis, AbrahamLatifeandJamarSterling are accused in a string of armed grocery store robberies, including one wherea manager was kidnapped.

The arguments are being made as part of a Jordan application named after a Supreme Court decisionthat puts hard timelines on what is considered an unreasonable delay for matters to get to trial.

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Last year, the country's highest court put hard timelines of 18 months for provincial court matters and 30 months for Superior Court cases.

Delays beyond those timeframes are "presumptively unreasonable" and violate an accused's charter rightto be tried within a reasonable time, the decision said.

The trial,originally set for Oct. 3, 2016, was rescheduled in September and delayed a further 15 months at the defence lawyers' request, because they needed access to more of theevidence detailing the police and Crown's case against the accused.

More than 47 months will have passed between the arrests in February 2014 and the trial, now set for January 2018.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Bryan Mahoney assigned 32 months and three weeks of delay to the Crown but also deemed the case a "complex" one, which allows for more leeway when considering whether the timeline to get to trial is an unreasonable one.

After a five-month investigation, dubbed Operation Volcom, the four were chargedin severaltake-over style robberies wherearmed men would go into a store at closing time, order employees to the ground and then force one to open the safe inside.

In one of the cases, the manager of one of the grocery stores was kidnapped before the store wasrobbed.

The men are also charged withconspiracy because they areaccused of planning a number of other robberies.

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