CA — Montreal, Québec. Jody Matthew Burke, currently in prison for extreme sexual violence against his wife, has requested at his sentencing hearing that he not receive a dangerous offender designation because he now identifies as a woman.

As a dangerous offender, Burke can be incarcerated indefinitely; parole can be granted, but it is rare. Burke is asking the court for a long-term offender designation, instead (which is in place for a maximum of ten years).

Burke is a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter (described by a Québec journalist as “impressively built”) who was convicted of sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, sexual assault causing bodily harm, assault and uttering threats.

He beat his wife, Brigitte Jobin, for months, raped her at knifepoint, broke her ribs, strangled her to the point of unconsciousness, and forced her to tattoo his name on her skin.

Unbeknownst to Jobin when she met him, he was residing at a halfway house, where he was serving a sentence for similar violent sexual assault crimes committed in 2005 and 2014 in British Columbia and Ontario. She also was unaware that he was on the federal sexual offender registry as a result of these convictions.

With my size, I could scare the sh** out of anyone. I am aware (the victim) feared me. She had a reason to fear me.

-Burke testifying during the British Columbia case.

Burke began identifying as “non-binary” at some point after his most recent assault charges in 2017, for which he has been incarcerated since his arrest (the exact timeline of when he first adopted a transgender identity is not known, due to his unclear testimony), but says he only realized he was a woman a few weeks ago.

Burke says he would like to undergo his “transition” in a hospital, rather than in prison. He also claims that taking cross-sex hormones will make him less likely to re-offend (a Québec columnist described this as “far-fetched”), and a psychiatrist from the Pinel Institute testified that his risk of recidivism could be reduced if he were to do so (this same columnist intimated this was likely an unrealistic assumption to make: “That’s a huge if”). The psychiatrist recommended he be given a long-term offender designation instead of dangerous offender, if Burke undergoes “hormone therapy”.

In any event, Burke admitted he is still taking testosterone, purportedly to keep fit. He also claims he must delay taking cross-sex hormones to protect himself from attacks by other prisoners.

Jobin was caught off guard by Burke’s latest claims. While she expected him to invent various scenarios, she said that “this one came out of nowhere” and she believes this is his latest attempt to try and manipulate the court. Jobin had to wait four years for her ex-husband to be convicted, as he changed lawyers eight times before eventually representing himself, and caused various legal delays.

The Crown also doubts Burke’s sincerity. The judge will continue to hear the case at a later date.