A polygamist with 145 children from 24 wives faces trial in Canada

A man with 145 children from 24 wives has been put on trial on the charge of polygamy in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Winston Blackmore, the leader of a fundamentalist religious community called ‘Bountiful’, is charged with having two dozen wives in 25 years.

"Bountiful" was founded in 1946 and has its roots in offshoots from the American Mormon church founded in 1830, whose mainstream leadership eschewed polygamy in the 1890s.

The Mormons now take a very dim view of small holdout communities across North America who still engage in multiple marriages, and have fought legal battles against them.

The legal fight against the Bountiful leaders dates back to the early 1990s when police first investigated allegations that residents of an isolated religious community were practising multiple or "celestial'' marriages.

Burt, the lack of clarity around Canada's polygamy laws, led to failure in attempting at prosecuting Blackmore.

The prosecutors have been trying to clarify the legislation, including a reference question to the British Columbia Supreme Court. The court ruled in 2011 that laws banning polygamy were constitutional and did not violate the religious freedom guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Finally, he has been put on trial on Apr 18 at a provincial court.

Blackmore's lawyer, Blair Suffredine said in an interview with CBC news network that “there's no question surrounding the validity of Canada's polygamy laws, but rather whether his client is entitled to an exemption for religious reasons.”

"The dilemma is this, put simply: If you went out and slept with 20 women and made kids with each one of them, but then ran away and didn't pay for them, you would not have committed any crime,'' he said.

"But if you go through a ceremony where you promise to live with her or look after her and the children all your life, now you've committed a crime.''

Meanwhile, Peter Wilson, a special prosecutor appointed by the British Columbia provincial government, argued that “expert evidence was going to be called from witnesses in the United States and that it wouldn't make sense to have them come to Canada again for a second trial.”

Justice Sheri Ann Donegan of the BC Supreme Court said she wanted to "balance the interests of the public and the accused'' and was not persuaded that the trial needed to be separated. She is expected to give her full reasons for the decision before the trial begins.”

The trial is expected to last several weeks.

The case has given rise to the discussion of religious freedom involve idiosyncratic micro-communities which impose on themselves (and on their children) norms of life which the rest of society finds bizarre or worse.

Blackmore is not the only Bountiful-area resident who has been charged. James Oler, a former brother-in-law of Blackmore, is also facing trial alongside Blackmore for allegedly marrying four women between 1993 and 2009.

Oler was appointed to lead Bountiful following Blackmore's excommunication from the Mormon splinter group in 2002 by Warren Jeffs, the head prophet of the US-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In mid-April, Justice Donegan dismissed a request from Blackmore's lawyer, Blair Suffredine, to hold separate trials for Blackmore and Oler.

Suffredine argued the polygamy charges involve separate and different allegations. If tried together, the evidence against Oler could be prejudicial to Blackmore and vice versa, he said.