EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains details that may be graphic. Reader discretion is advised.
The female complainant in the high-profile world junior sexual assault trial was questioned under cross-examination Wednesday over “inaccuracies” in her statements.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a standard publication ban, testified for the fourth day in the trial of Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillion Dube and Callan Foote.
All five men have pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault stemming from what the Crown alleges was non-consensual group sex in June 2018. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
The 27-year-old woman, who has been appearing virtually inside a London, Ont., courtroom, was under another round of intense cross-examination by the defence Wednesday, this time facing questioning from Hart’s lawyer, Megan Savard.
Savard questioned E.M.’s memory and tried to show inconsistencies in statements she gave over the years, suggesting she had “different degrees of care with different investigations,” including two investigations by London Police – and a separate one launched by Hockey Canada.
The complainant had a hard time recalling specific moments when certain statements were made, adding at points throughout the years she was just getting things done because she didn’t want to relive the experience.
Savard suggested the explanations for her “inaccuracies” in those statements were false, which the complainant denied.
E.M. ‘adopted persona of a porn star’ to cope: Savard
David Humphrey, who is representing McLeod, was the first defence lawyer to cross-examine E.M., and suggested Tuesday the woman, who was 20 at the time of the alleged incident, wanted a “wild night” and sought to keep it going after having consensual sex with McLeod in his hotel room.
Humphrey suggested the woman, who has testified she was drunk and not of a clear mind that night, was “flirtatious” with some of the men who came into the room. The complainant said she didn’t remember what she said that night, adding it did not sound like something she would do.
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E.M. said she was made to have sex with five men in the room, without giving her consent – and that she was degraded, spit on, and slapped to the point of pain during her two hours in the room on June 19, 2018.
Before Savard began her questioning Wednesday, Humphrey told court the defence lawyers, who will all have an opportunity to question the complainant, would try their best to not overlap with each other.
The complainant reiterated to Savard her earlier testimony that she felt the only safe thing to do was to give the men what they were wanting. Savard suggested one of E.M.’s “coping mechanisms” that night may have been to offer sexual acts.
“I felt that was the thing they wanted. It seemed like they were trying to recreate a porn scene,” the complainant told Savard. Savard then suggested she adopted “the persona of a porn star” as a method to cope.
E.M. replied she felt pressured by the large amount of men in the room, and recalled hearing laughing and sexual remarks from them.
“It didn’t feel like I had any other option … that is how my body responded based on the situation I was in,” she said.
Savard continued questioning along those lines, asking if E.M. remembered what was being said leading up to her first act of oral sex. The complainant replied she didn’t, but remember what was being said during it.
E.M. added the men didn’t use physical force to keep her there, but that she was on “auto pilot” and “going through the motions” to “make sure I could get out of there.”
Savard also suggested the woman, who was in a relationship at the time, made allegations against the players because she thought her boyfriend, now her fiancé, would leave her if she told him she’d had “group sex with a bunch of hockey players.”
The woman said she was honest with her boyfriend about what happened that night and took responsibility for her initial sexual encounter with McLeod.
Crown accusations
Court has heard in June 2018, many members of the team were in town at the time for a gala celebrating their gold-medal win earlier that year.
Since she first took the stand last Friday, the complainant has offered graphic testimony about the moment she met McLeod and his teammates at a downtown bar on June 18 and the alleged sexual assaults that happened afterwards in McLeod’s room at the Delta hotel.
After they had consensual sex, Crown prosecutor Heather Donkers alleged in her opening remarks that McLeod started inviting other people into his room. It was then, in the early morning hours of June 19, that several sexual acts took place without the woman’s voluntary consent, the prosecution alleges.
The complainant was recorded on multiple videos in the room that were shown in court last week, saying in one of them, “It was all consensual.” The Crown has said it plans to argue that those videos, allegedly taken by McLeod, are not evidence that the complainant did, in fact, consent.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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