Ex-Woodstock mayor sentenced to nearly five years for sexual assaults
Judge says Trevor Birtch’s crimes marked a “catastrophic fall from grace.”
Author of the article:Jane Sims
Published May 19, 2026 • Last updated 1 day ago • 5 minute read
Former Woodstock mayor Trevor Birtch leaves the London courthouse on Feb. 21, 2025. (Jane Sims/The London Free Press)
Former Woodstock mayor Trevor Birtch leaves the London courthouse on Feb. 21, 2025. (Jane Sims/The London Free Press)
Trevor Birtch’s prison sentence for violent sexual assaults on a former intimate partner marked the final act of what a judge called “a catastrophic fall from grace.”
The former two-term Woodstock mayor, who had no criminal record, was led out of a London courtroom Tuesday morning to begin a four-year, eight-month prison sentence after being convicted on two counts of sexual assault.
His victim was a vulnerable woman whose identity is protected by a court order and who Superior Court Justice Spencer Nicholson said Birtch treated “like your property, or worse, your pet.”
“Mr. Birtch, this case represents what I consider to be a catastrophic fall from grace,” Nicholson said in his ruling.
“It is not for this court to try to explain how or why your fall from grace happened, but the depths to which you have fallen is truly remarkable and quite saddening. I obviously do not know whether you can climb back up, but I do hope that you try for your own sake.”
The sentence stems from convictions in Birtch’s second criminal trial in September 2024 involving sex-related offences tied to a messy personal life while he was mayor and separated from his wife.
Nicholson found Birtch, 51, guilty in January 2025. Sentencing was delayed for more than a year after Birtch’s original defence lawyer was disbarred.
The victim, who was 39 at the time of Birtch’s arrest, described abusive and controlling behaviour by the former mayor, who she said supplied her with drugs and alcohol and routinely “raped” her when she was intoxicated.
She contended that she saw Birtch snort cocaine off-camera during online city council meetings during the pandemic.
Nicholson said the assaults were “particularly humiliating and degrading to the victim and clearly demonstrate that Mr. Birtch was only interested in his own sexual gratification.”
One sexual assault involved Birtch attempting to force the victim to perform a sex act on him on a roadside after a bizarre trip to Turkey Point where the woman had been assaulted by a stranger.
The second conviction covered assaults between January 2019 and April 2022, when the woman said she woke to find Birtch having sex with her or inappropriately touching her body without consent.
“Mr. Birtch, you treated the victim like she was your property, or worse, your pet, that you could do whatever you wanted to her, whenever you wanted.
“She was treated like an abused animal. She was not. She is a human being, entitled to be treated with dignity and respect,” Nicholson said.
During sentencing submissions in January, assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred sought a six-year prison sentence, while defence lawyer Jordan Gold asked for 3 1/2 years, arguing Birtch snapped under the pressures of being mayor and the breakdown of his marriage.
While Birtch would not admit to having an alcohol or drug problem in a pre-sentence report, his lawyer said he had been “over-medicating” with alcohol and over-the-counter pain medication for a shoulder injury and was now willing to seek addiction treatment.
Nicholson noted that nine letters of support “depict an honest, well-intended person of strong moral character who was selfless in his service to his community, including his time as mayor.”
“Respectfully, while much of what is stated may possibly reflect the person that Mr. Birtch may once have been or otherwise, it is clear that the person he was towards the victim in this case was very different,” Nicholson said.
The victim, who suffers from depression, anxiety and chronic pain, did not complete a victim impact statement, but Nicholson said “it was clear from her evidence at trial the level of vulnerability that she possessed and the level of degradation that she experienced at the hands of Mr. Birtch.”
Nicholson found Birtch supplied the victim with drugs and alcohol and said she “was susceptible to Mr. Birtch’s promises of favours as the mayor” and that “Mr. Birtch was prepared to wield the power that he perceived he had over her.”
“The evidence in this case demonstrated for all to see the callousness, the indifference that you demonstrated to this victim and to women in general,” Nicholson said.
He acknowledged that “Mr. Birtch has let a lot of people down as the mayor of Woodstock, but that, in my view, cannot play any role in his sentencing.”
The sentence nearly concludes years of court proceedings involving four separate matters, most tied to Birtch’s personal life following his separation from his wife.
His journey through the criminal justice system almost requires a road map.
He was first charged in February 2022 with assault, sexual assault and choking involving an intimate partner. The sentencing Tuesday relates to additional charges laid in April 2022 while he was still mayor of Woodstock.
In October 2022, Birtch lost his bid for a third term as mayor, finishing a distant third in the municipal election.
He stood trial before Justice Michael Carnegie in London in January 2024 on the first set of charges and was found guilty of assault and sexual assault in August 2024.
His second trial, the subject of Tuesday’s sentencing, was held before Nicholson in September 2024. Nicholson found him guilty in January 2025 on two counts of sexual assault.
However, Carnegie declared a mistrial in the first case in December 2024 after finding the Crown failed to disclose evidence referenced in the second trial that could have been relevant to the first.
In the midst of the London court cases, Birtch pleaded guilty in October 2024 to driving with twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood in connection with a two-vehicle crash near Woodstock in October 2023.
Birtch had been charged in London an hour earlier with assault and unlawful entry involving another woman. Those charges were eventually withdrawn by the Crown.
There will be no retrial on the first set of charges. Last month, Birtch pleaded guilty before Justice Marc Garson to assault and sexual assault – the same counts Carnegie had convicted him on almost two years ago.
He is to be sentenced on June 16. Garson was told by the Crown and the defence that any sentence Birtch receives will be served concurrently with Birtch’s current prison term.
jsims@postmedia.com
Judge says Trevor Birtch’s crimes marked a “catastrophic fall from grace.”
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