B.C. Supreme Court Justice James Williams told a jury in New Westminster on Tuesday that he expected the Robert William Pickton trial to wrap up well before Christmas.

Williams called that a "significant milestone," saying the trial has moved quite efficiently and would be over "significantly in advance at the end of the year."

The judge told the court that the Crown is scheduled to have another key witness in the box all next week, before the trial heads to a two-week summer break.

The Crown is then expected to finish during the week of Aug. 7, when the trial resumes, and the defence can then call evidence, Williams said.

At the beginning of the trial on Jan. 22, the jury heard the trial would last a year or longer.

Brief testimony Tuesday

The jury sat for half an hour Tuesday to hear brief testimony of RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Hyland, who was involved in stopping Pickton in 1999 to conduct a sobriety test.

Hyland said Pickton passed the test, but the passenger in his truck was Lynn Ellingsen, who was the Crown's star witness in the trial.

Ellingsen, a former friend of Pickton, testified in June that she saw a dead woman hanging from a chain in Pickton's barn. The defence spent a number of days trying to discredit her testimony.

Court resumes on Thursday.

Pickton is facing 26 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He is currently on trial for six of the deaths and will be tried on the remaining 20 later.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Pickton is being tried for the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey and Georgina Papin — all women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between 1997 and 2001.