On the day a month-long trial for a man accused of "significant" human trafficking was set to begin, the Crown's case fell apart over a technicality.

Christian Vitela, 37, and his defence lawyer had not received all disclosure or evidence related to the case in the years leading up to the criminal trial, assistant Crown attorney Heather Palin said on April 23.

Vitela hadn't accessed all phone records of the migrant workers he was charged with trafficking — the phones had been seized by the RCMP and were "typically core disclosure in human trafficking prosecutions," said Vitela's lawyer, Tobias Okada-Phillips.

The RCMP, which initially laid nine human trafficking charges against Vitela in 2019, have a different version of events. It includes that they notified Vitela on several occasions that the information was available, and set up a room and computer for him to view the materials, but he never showed up.