Former Montreal North borough mayor Gilles Deguire has renounced his right to a preliminary hearing.
The former police officer was is court Friday morning for the preliminary hearing, and his alleged victim was prepared to take the stand and testify via closed-circut television.
Instead Deguire waived his right to hear the evidence against him and elected to go straight to trial by judge.
Deguire is accused of sexual assault and sexual touching of a minor, with the acts allegedly occurring between Dec. 1, 2013 and Oct. 23, 2015.
Crown prosecutor Louise Blais welcomed the move.
"It will be much easier for [the victim] because she will only have to testify once," said Blais.
In the interest of speeding up the proceedings as much as possible, the lawyers agreed to meet next month to set a trial date.
"The hearing will be before the judge and we will explain how many witnesses we have, and how long we expect the trial to take," said Blais.
She anticipated the trial would begin in early 2017.
Deguire was a police officer for 30 years and a political attaché for a decade before becoming borough mayor of Montreal North in 2009.
He resigned in January shortly before being charged, and remains free on bail.
