Second sexual assault trial begins for ex-Woodstock mayor

The former mayor of Woodstock described the bizarre sexual encounter as “the attic torture scenario.”

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In the middle of a text and voice Facebook Messenger exchange with a now-former friend that was played and shown at his second sexual assault trial Tuesday, Trevor Birtch, 49, recounted a series of sadistic events with a woman he referred to as “the trouble one” in a hidden crawlspace in his attic at his Woodstock address.

“I had her locked in my attic a little while back,” he said in a mid-day exchange on Dec. 18, 2021, to the female friend who had frequent communications with the then-mayor.

“I took her, I locked her up, I tied her up, I beat her,” he said in the voice memo, adding it was clear to him he had sexually satisfied the woman. He told the friend he had taken 50 videos and one was three or four minutes long.

“It was terrible. It was nasty. And, oh yeah, I was getting even with her, but she got off on it,” said the two-term mayor of Woodstock before he was turfed out by voters in 2022, after the charges were laid.

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A recording of the shocking voice message interspersed in the text exchange began Birtch’s second Superior Court trial this year on sex charges. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday before Justice Spencer Nicholson to three counts of sexual assault involving the same complainant, whose identity is protected by court order.

Assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser outlined the case in her brief opening statement. One charge stems from an incident on Aug. 15, 2021, just outside Turkey Point, in Norfolk County. The second charge in connected to sexual incidents on April 5, 2022, both inside a motor vehicle when Birtch picked her up near her home in Woodstock and then at her home.

The allegations, Moser said, are of unwanted sexual intercourse and other acts.

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The third charge encompasses a period from Jan. 1, 2017, to April 22, 2022, that Moser said covers any other unwanted sexual activity between Birtch and the complainant. That appears to apply to “the attic torture scenario.”

She is a different woman than the victim who testified at Birtch’s first trial earlier this year, where he was convicted of assault and sexual assault, and acquitted of a second count of sexual assault. His sentencing date before Justice Michael Carnegie is supposed to be set at a hearing next week.

But, there is some overlap between the two cases.

Nicholson was asked at the outset to conduct an in-trial hearing about the communications with the former friend that Moser said points to a confession by Birtch, and goes to “his state of mind.”

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Birtch’s defense lawyer James Battin, who reported Birtch will testify at the trial, didn’t argue it was Birtch’s voice on the recording. But, he said the text and audio exchange was simply Birtch being braggadocious and full of “bravado” about his sex life, after ending his marriage.

“It never happened,” Battin said of the attic encounter.

Nicholson said he would decide how much weight he would give the communications, once the texts and transcripts were entered as exhibits and he’s heard from Birtch’s former friend.

The former friend, 45, who is in a long-term common-law relationship and now is friends with the complainant, testified through a video link she first met Birtch at a Woodstock bar and music came right after he won his first mayoral term. They became friends and she later met two of Birtch’s three children and his wife.

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The relationship was beneficial, she said, for her outreach work. Having Birtch as a friend in Woodstock would open doors and “help the community more.

“It was helpful to get the mayor to come out or use his name and he would back it up,” she said.

She maintained communication with Birtch through social media, phone calls and text messages where they both shared what was happening in their personal lives.

But what Birtch had to say in that Dec. 18, 2021, exchange about the sadistic attic encounter was so disturbing she played it for her husband and then sent the most alarming parts to a woman who was helping “her friend who was going through some legal troubles at that time with Trevor.”

The woman’s friend was the victim at Birtch’s first trial and the woman wanted to give the exchange to London police who were investigating Birtch. A special constable later extracted, with permission, the entirety of the messages from Birtch’s former friend’s phone.

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What was most troubling to Birtch’s former friend was Birtch told her his son heard the attic encounter. His son, who was living with him at the time, told his father he heard “screaming and shouting” upstairs and thought there was a fight going on.

Birtch said his son told him “it sounded like someone was killing someone, some chick screaming all the time.”

The son went upstairs to investigate but there was no one there, which was odd, he told his father because “your car was here.”

The former friend said through questions from Moser that Birtch often spoke about the complainant – calling her “the trouble one” – between 2019 and 2021. She said Birtch “had been sleeping with her off and on” for some time.

“He knew her from the past, they were lovers in the present,” she said, adding the complainant wanted to be with Birtch, “get married and live happily ever after.”

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She said she only met the complainant briefly once, during a time when Birtch had been told to stay away from her. “He got me to take a food gift card to her door,” she said, adding she told the complainant from whom the gift was, “but she already knew.”

They now communicate often, but she hasn’t told her the details of what Birtch said.

She cut off communication with Birtch less than a week after the attic conversation, but not before sending one last lengthy message, imploring him to seek help.

“Whatever demons this man may carry, he was my friend,” she said.

Battin still has to cross-examine the former friend and won’t be able to start until Thursday when the trial resumes.

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