EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains details that may be graphic. Reader discretion is advised.
The high-profile world junior sexual assault trial is entering its next phase, after the female complainant at the centre of the allegations finished more than a week of testimony and cross-examination Wednesday.
Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have all pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault stemming from what the Crown alleges was non-consensual group sex in McLeod’s room at the Delta hotel in London, Ont., in 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, whose identity is protected under a standard publication ban and is known as E.M. in court documents, has testified virtually inside a London courtroom about what she says happened to her that night. The woman was 20 years old at the time of the alleged incident.
Here’s what has happened so far in the trial.
How the first trial began, then ended
A first attempt at a trial began on April 23, when prosecutor Heather Donkers delivered her opening statement and laid out the Crown’s case against the five players.
However, the second day of the trial saw jurors dismissed early after Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia said an incident occurred during the lunch hour, and that she needed to discuss it with the lawyers.
Matters discussed when the jury is not present can’t be reported until after jurors are sequestered to deliberate.
Carroccia declared a mistrial the following day, and a new jury was selected hours later, starting the trial process over again.
A closer look at the second trial
Donkers opened the new trial by going through her opening statement again.
She told the new jury the case centres on consent and whether the complainant “voluntarily agreed to engage in each and every instance of sexual activity that took place at the time that they happened.”
Donkers said E.M. met McLeod and his teammates at a bar in London on June 18, 2018. Many members of the team were in town at the time for a gala celebrating their gold-medal win earlier that year, the court heard.
The jury was shown what prosecutors said was security video from the bar. On the stand, a London police officer involved in the investigation identified the men seen in some of the videos as members of the 2018 world junior hockey team.
The court heard E.M. had about eight drinks at the bar, and later went with McLeod to his hotel room, where they had consensual sex. Donkers said that act is not part of the trial.
Jurors were shown what prosecutors said was a screenshot of a group chat, captured around 2:10 a.m. on June 19, involving members of the world junior team.
In it, McLeod asks if anyone wants to be in a “three-way,” then follows up with his hotel room number and Hart replies, “I’m in.”
Another member of the 2018 team, current Washington Capitals forward Taylor Raddysh, testified remotely he was the one who took the screenshot, but didn’t remember when the message came in or when he first saw it.
In her opening statement, Donkers said “a group of large men that she didn’t know” then came into the hotel room.
A number of sexual acts occurred over the next few hours, and while the complainant was expected to testify that she didn’t say no or physically resist, she felt she had to go along with what the men wanted, Donkers said.
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In a series of videos taken between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. and shown to the jury, a young woman is seen telling the camera “it was all consensual” and claiming “I am so sober.”
Raddysh and another former team member, Boris Katchouk — neither of whom were charged — testified they were in the hotel room briefly and saw a woman in the bed, but did not participate in sex with her.
What the complainant told the court
In her testimony, the female complainant told the court she was drunk at the bar with her friends on the night she met McLeod and his teammates.
She said the men would “move my hand to touch their crotch area” while dancing, adding she was “awkwardly going along with it, feeling it was a bit much.”
The complainant told the court two men arrived shortly after she had sex with McLeod and that more arrived in the room soon after while she was in the bathroom. She said the men told her to lie on a bedsheet on the floor of the room, and were laughing and telling sexual jokes about her.
The complainant testified she gave oral sex to three men on the floor of the room, which she alleged was not consensual. She also said she had vaginal and oral sex with another man in the bathroom, which she alleged was also not consensual. The woman said she cried and at various points in the night, tried to leave but each time, someone would convince her to stay, she alleged.
She testified that the “only safe thing to do was to give them what they were wanting.”
What happened in cross-examination
Defence lawyers for each of the five accused took turns cross-examining the complainant over several days, telling the court they would do their best not to overlap each other with their questioning.
David Humphrey, who is representing McLeod, suggested during cross-examination the woman wanted to keep the night going after having consensual sex with him, and discussed having some of his friends come to the hotel room “to have some fun.”
The complainant said she didn’t recall having that conversation and was surprised when more men showed up at the room.
Hart’s lawyer, Megan Savard, suggested E.M. adopted “the persona of a porn star” as a method to cope with what the complainant described as an attempt by the accused to “recreate a porn scene.”
“It didn’t feel like I had any other option … that is how my body responded based on the situation I was in,” the woman said.
During a second day of cross-examination, Savard asked E.M. why she told the court the men had said “don’t let her leave,” when she had previously told London police the men said “don’t leave.”
Savard said “don’t let her leave” sounds “much more criminal” than E.M.’s previous phrasing of what was allegedly said, and accused the complainant of “twisting” her words over time, which E.M. denied.
E.M. had a hard time identifying players when Dan Brown, lawyer for Formenton, went through security footage of them entering the bar on the night in question. Formenton was not at the bar that night, court heard, as he was underage.
Brown questioned the complainant on her memory about how many drinks she had, as well as a bouncer at the bar who E.M. knew but did not mention to police in 2018 and 2022 because, Brown said, “you didn’t think he would help your narrative.”
The woman said she didn’t want to involve the bouncer in her complaint and didn’t think he had anything to offer about what allegedly happened in the hotel room.
The next day, Brown suggested E.M. was “egging on” the group to have sexual intercourse with her, and was frustrated when no one would, which the woman denied.
Lisa Carnelos, lawyer for Dube, questioned E.M. about text messages she sent to her best friend throughout June 19. Court heard E.M. also spoke with the friend over the phone after the alleged incident.
E.M. said she was trying to downplay what she said in the phone call, was “in between ignoring it and pretending it didn’t happen” the day after, and eventually felt “embarrassment and shame” not only for her actions but for “what they did to me.”
Julianna Greenspan, lawyer for Foote, questioned E.M. over her use of “man” and “men” when describing the accused during the trial — as opposed to “boy” and “boys,” which E.M. used in her initial statement to London police in 2018.
The lawyer suggested this showed E.M. had “a clear agenda,” which the woman denied.
On the complainant’s final day of testimony, Crown prosecutors followed up on topics raised during cross-examination, a process known as re-examination.
E.M. told prosecutor Meagan Cunningham she was “not expecting anything else” to occur after leaving the bar with McLeod and having sex with him.
McLeod, Hart and Dube are accused of obtaining oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube is also accused of slapping her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.
Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant without her consent inside the bathroom.
The Crown alleges McLeod also vaginally penetrated her without her consent at the end of the night.
What happens next?
After answering Cunningham’s questions Wednesday, the judge released E.M. and the Crown called its next witness.
Former world juniors team member Tyler Steenbergen, who has not been charged, began testifying by videoconference Wednesday afternoon.
Defence will get an opportunity to present its case to the jury after prosecutors finish presenting their evidence.
The trial has been estimated to take about eight weeks total. It has lasted for two-and-a-half weeks so far.
How did the case get to trial?
News of the alleged incident first broke in May 2022 after TSN reported Hockey Canada had settled a civil lawsuit with the female complainant.
That report triggered a series of events, with intense scrutiny focused on Hockey Canada that eventually led the entire board and leadership team to resign. An investigation revealed the organization had two secret funds to pay settlements on claims of sexual assault and abuse.
London Police, which closed an initial investigation without charges in 2019, would reopen the case three years later and lay charges.
Chief Thai Truong apologized to the complainant in February 2024, saying “it shouldn’t take years and years for us to arrive at the outcome of today.”
Hart, McLeod, Foote and Dube did not receive offers from their NHL teams for new contracts after they were charged. Formenton most recently played in a Swiss league for two seasons.
— with files from Global’s Aaron D’Andrea, Sean O’Shea and Nathaniel Dove, and the Canadian Press
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