Carter Hart, one of five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team accused of sexual assault, testified Thursday after Crown prosecutors wrapped up their case.
Hart, Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault stemming from what the Crown alleges was non-consensual group sex with a 20-year-old woman in McLeod’s London, Ont., hotel room in June 2018.
McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
The high-profile trial, which has seen two juries dismissed since it began in late April, is proceeding by judge alone and is expected to unfold over eight weeks.
Crown prosecutors rested their case Thursday after their last witness, retired London police Det. Steve Newton, finished his testimony Wednesday.
Lawyers for each of the five men can put forward witnesses or call evidence — but McLeod’s lawyer said he would not be calling evidence because McLeod’s police statement in 2018 was shown to court this week. However, Megan Savard, Hart’s lawyer, called her client to the stand.
Oral sex with complainant was ‘consensual’: Hart
Court has heard the team was in town for events marking its gold-medal performance at that year’s championship, and the complainant, known as E.M. in court documents, was out with friends when they met at a downtown bar on June 18, 2018.
After being with McLeod and his teammates at the bar, E.M. would go on to have consensual sex with McLeod in his room in the early morning hours of June 19. Court has heard E.M., who testified she was drunk and not of a clear mind, was in the washroom after she had sex with McLeod and came out to a group of men in the room allegedly invited for a “3 way” by McLeod in a group chat.
It was then the Crown alleges that several sexual acts took place without E.M.’s consent.
Hart told court he received a group text from McLeod with the invite, and said he had a phone call with him. When he was in the room, Hart said E.M. was asking the players to have sex with her, and he chose to ask for oral sex because he did not want to have intercourse.
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Hart said the oral sex was “consensual” and brief because it was “weird.” Hart said he was single at the time, and E.M. was annoyed at one point when guys weren’t taking her up on her offers. Court has heard many of the players were in relationships at the time.
E.M. testified she was naked, drunk and afraid when men she didn’t know suddenly started coming into the room. She went on “autopilot” as a coping mechanism as she engaged in sexual acts, she said.
Defence lawyers have suggested E.M. wasn’t as drunk as she has testified she was, wanted a “wild night” with the players, was “egging” them on to have sex with her and accused her of having a “clear agenda” at the trial.
E.M. has pushed back against those claims in a several-days-long cross-examination and at points outright rejected them, saying she was coaxed into staying in the room, was disrespected and was taken advantage of by the group who she said “could see I was out of my mind.”
Newton said he wasn’t aware of McLeod text
Newton, who led the initial investigation into the allegations, testified Wednesday he never became aware of McLeod’s text during his investigation, nor did he reach out to McLeod or his lawyer about it. He also said he didn’t see a text Dube mentioned in their interview, or hear of a group chat in which the players who were in the room discussed how to respond to Hockey Canada’s investigation into the encounter.
Newton testified he had formed a general assessment of the case before speaking to any of the players and told some of their lawyers he did not believe he had grounds to lay charges.
Newton’s interviews with Formenton and Dube were also played in court Wednesday, a day after court viewed his interview with McLeod. Newton also interviewed Foote by phone, he said, though that recording has not been presented in court.
At the time, he had pointed to video footage of E.M. arriving at and leaving the hotel, and his belief that she didn’t appear overly inebriated. He had said that by her account, “there may have been a certain level of consent given her active involvement,” court heard.
He clarified Wednesday that he meant she was participating in the acts “without resisting or saying she didn’t want to do it or anything like that.”
Newton told the court he also had concerns that the woman was being pressured by her mother to pursue charges.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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