Ex-Woodstock mayor to be retried on assault, sex assault counts
Trevor Birtch will head back to trial on two of his three original charges related to his successful mistrial application.
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Woodstock’s beleaguered former mayor will head back to trial on two of his three original charges related to his successful mistrial application.
In a written decision released Tuesday, Superior Court Justice Michael Carnegie said Trevor Birtch, 49, would be retried on charges of assault and sexual assault involving a 45-year-old woman, the two counts of which he’d been convicted last August after a spring trial.
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In the same trial decision, Carnegie acquitted Birtch of a second sexual assault charge involving the same complainant who’d been involved in a romantic relationship with Birtch.
Carnegie decided in December to declare a mistrial in the case after it was discovered Crown information about a witness in Birtch’s second sexual assault trial in September, involving a different woman, wasn’t fully disclosed for the first trial in May and could have had implications on how the evidence was analyzed.
“The Crown disclosure breach created the necessity for a retrial,” Carnegie wrote in his decision. “It should not create a second opportunity at conviction where this court’s reasons could not, on the face of this evidentiary record, have been reasonably disturbed by the introduction of (the second trial’s witness’s) evidence.”
Birtch was Woodstock’s mayor for two terms until he was soundly trounced at the polls in 2022 after being charged with the sexual assault counts. Since then, he’s faced trial twice in London’s Superior Court on sexual assault allegations involving two women he was seeing at the same time.
He was convicted in January by Justice Spencer Nicholson of two counts of sexual assault involving a victim, aged 39, who struggles with mental and physical health issues and who described a list of unwanted sexual interactions with the former mayor.
During the second trial in September, that victim testified Birtch routinely plied her with drugs and alcohol and would snort cocaine during city council Zoom meetings during the pandemic.
In his decision, Nicholson said Birtch’s blanket denial of any wrongdoing was “completely incredible” and called Birtch “an obvious liar.”
Birtch’s sentencing hearing for those convictions is set for May 5.
He also pleaded guilty last month in a Woodstock court to driving with blood alcohol over the legal limit on Oct. 30, 2023, and received a 90-day conditional sentence, a year of probation and a 12-month driving ban.
He is on trial in the Ontario Court of Justice in London after pleading not guilty to two counts of assault and one count of unlawful entry in connection with an alleged incident at a London home hours before he was charged with the impaired driving offences.
That case is expected to return to court March 12 to set a date to continue the trial.
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