Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 09/05) - The trial of a once-prominent Yellowknife civil lawyer accused of molesting a young girl has been postponed until June.

Charles McGee, 54, made a brief appearance in Supreme Court Tuesday morning as lawyers agreed to push back his trial, which was to begin Wednesday with selection of a jury.

McGee, a father of three, is charged with one count of indecent assault dating back to the early 1980s. He is accused of molesting a girl who was between 11 and 12-years-old at the time.

The most recent charges were laid in October 2004 - the day before McGee was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest for molesting two young girls in 1973.

The Law Society of the Northwest Territories suspended his legal licence for 18 months following that conviction.

McGee was a prominent civil attorney and has participated in several high profile cases, including a 1999 challenge to the Northwest Territories' electoral boundaries and a 2004 appeal against a housing development near Niven Lake.

He was ordered to stand trial on the most recent charges in April 2005.

Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Dennis Claxton said the trial would likely take place in Yellowknife.

It is scheduled to start June 5.

That would mark the third time McGee has been tried for sex crimes against a minor. In 2002 he was acquitted of fondling a nine-year-old girl.