Trial dates in question as former SMU groundskeeper fires his lawyer

There are questions about when two additional sexual assault trials for former Saint Mary's University groundskeeper Matthew Percy might proceed.

Both trials are scheduled for 2020, but Percy has fired his lawyer and has been denied funding by Nova Scotia Legal Aid to hire another one, Halifax provincial court was told last week.

Percy was represented by legal aid lawyer Brad Sarson at his second of four trials, which ended in December with convictions for sexual assault and voyeurism in a case where Percy videoed his victim as she lay unconscious on a bed.

He was sentenced in May to 2½ years in jail, less almost two years credit for time served. He is appealing his conviction, and disputes Judge Elizabeth Buckle's interpretation of the video and her finding that his victim did not consent.

"Judge wrongly concluded consent no longer present in second video," Percy wrote in a notice of appeal filed from provincial jail in Pictou.

In his notice of appeal, Percy also claims he received ineffective counsel from Sarson.

Percy is appealing legal aid's decision to deny him funding for a new lawyer as he faces trial next year in two more incidents involving different women. He is to return to court next month to update the judge on his search for new representation.

No date has been set for the appeal of his conviction.

Percy was acquitted at the first of his sexual assault trials. The Crown is appealing that acquittal. That appeal is to be heard in October.