The Ontario College of Teachers has stripped Chris Spence of his teaching certification, marking the first time a licence has been revoked because of plagiarism.

The decision, delivered Monday by the college’s disciplinary committee, came a month after the former director of education at the Toronto District School Board was found guilty of professional misconduct.

Spence, whose fall from the top of the city’s education ranks began almost four years ago, was not present at the hearing. He was asked to immediately surrender his teaching certificate to the college’s registrar.

A written reason for the decision will be made public at a later date. The college would not comment on the decision, but spokesperson Gabrielle Barkany confirmed it was the first time the discipline committee had revoked a teaching licence because of plagiarism.

“This case is pretty unique,” she wrote in an email to the Star.

In a written statement submitted to the committee, Spence said he was advised not to attend Monday’s hearing by his doctors, and that the hearing had adversely affected his mental health.

“I am a man who made a grievous mistake. Not theft, not forgery, not fraud, not assault on a student, not a criminal offence. But plagiarism ... ” he wrote. “Now, years later, I still do not feel like I am alive. I do not feel like I am breathing.”

In the letter, colleagues and friends submitted testimonials hailing Spence’s work as an educator. Spence said he hoped to one day teach again.

“I am on my knees, still. I just want to get back on my feet.”

Spence also criticized the committee for going ahead with the hearing without him while he struggles with depression.

“You went ahead in this, a process that seems to be engineered to take away one of the few things I still possess, and about which I have great pride. The designation of ‘teacher.’ Even after my confession, and my apologies, and my complete and total self-abasement, you carried on,” he wrote.

After the decision, Spence said in a statement that he was “shocked and disappointed” in the committee’s decision, “given that other teachers facing far more serious offences have been suspended in the past.” He said he will consider his next step after the written decision is released.

Lisa Kinsella, a managing partner with the public relations firm Daisy Group, was at the hearing to represent Spence.

“The punishment does not fit the crime, because there was no crime,” Kinsella said in an interview after the decision was read by the committee.

“He made a mistake, he owned up to the mistake immediately, he has been apologetic. This process has gone on for four years. He is a broken man who has been struggling to come back through this.”

The education community was rocked by the plagiarism scandal, which began with accusations that Spence had cribbed passages for an opinion piece he wrote for the Star in January 2013.

Within months, it exploded into claims that he had used other people’s work in his speeches, blogs, books and doctoral thesis.

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Spence is also the subject of a tribunal at the University of Toronto, which is investigating allegations that he plagiarized portions of his thesis two decades ago at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

The long-awaited hearing on those charges is expected to proceed Feb. 16, said Elizabeth Church, a University of Toronto spokesperson.