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OTTAWA — The high-profile trial of former Afghan hostage Joshua Boyle is now on an indeterminate but likely lengthy delay.

Significantly, the break doesn’t come for any of the usual reasons — a key participant suddenly taken ill, an overbooked courthouse, late-in-the-game disclosure by Crown prosecutors, unexpected witness unavailability or any sort of legal wrangling between prosecutors and defence counsel.

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Rather, the trial has been paused indefinitely because a third party — the complainant, Boyle’s estranged wife and former fellow hostage Caitlan Coleman, and her lawyer Ian Carter — has essentially and with the permission of the law hijacked the proceeding.

Under controversial amendments made late last year to sexual assault law in Sections .276 and .278 of the Criminal Code, complainants like the 33-year-old Coleman were for the first time given an automatic right to be represented by their own lawyers and for those lawyers to be able to make submissions.