Technology glitches mar second day of testimony at Hockey Canada trial
LONDON, Ont. — The Crown showed jurors a number of surveillance videos and at least one photo from social media during Tuesday's proceedings in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial, which were cut short by technical issues.
In a sweltering hot courtroom on her second day of testimony, London Police detective Tiffany Waque, the Crown's first witness, played clips of videos that showed players from the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team and the complainant in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial drinking, talking at the bar and dancing at Jack's — a bar and nightclub on Richmond Street that is popular amongst university and college students.
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The video clips from a June evening in 2018, prior to the alleged incident at the Delta Armouries Hotel, are the first pieces of evidence presented in the Crown's case against the five defendants. Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote are all facing sexual assault charges in connection with the alleged incident; all five players pleaded not guilty last week.
The complainant, then 20, alleges that she was sexually assaulted in the hotel following a Hockey Canada gala celebrating the team's 2018 World Junior Championship run.
At multiple points during Waque's testimony, the surveillance videos, many of which were not accompanied by sound, were paused to allow her to identify for the jury who was in the video and which camera angles from within Jack's — the main bar, an auxiliary bar, the dance floor — captured the video. One of the first videos showed Brett Howden approaching the complainant at the bar; a short time after, he returned with McLeod. The complainant and McLeod could be seen on video talking and, at one point, taking a shot together. Later, in another silent surveillance video, Waque identified McLeod and the complainant dancing together amid a crush of other people and strobing lights.
In addition to surveillance video, Waque also showed jurors multiple videos from Drake Batherson and one from McLeod that show the players in various stages of revelry throughout their night at Jack's — jumping, singing and dancing together.
One video showed Batherson, Howden and Cale Makar dancing to The Killers' 'Mr. Brightside' song. Another video showed Tyler Steenbergen and Makar with Chris Brown's 'Yeah 3x' in the background. A third video showed McLeod, Batherson, Howden, Foote and Maxime Comtois huddled in a semicircle, facing the camera, singing along to the song 'Pursuit of Happiness' by Kid Cudi:
I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold
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Matt Maccarone, who was identified as a 'sponsor but not part of the team,' was shown in multiple videos talking with players at the bar. Jurors also saw one video that featured Howden, McLeod and Jake Bean, the latter of whom was sitting on Maccarone's shoulders.
The five players who are defendants in the case watched the videos from their respective defense tables.
There were multiple delays in Tuesday's proceedings because of technical issues within the courtroom. Justice Maria Carroccia, who is presiding, explained that there was a piece of equipment that was 'overheating' because of the temperature of the courtroom. Carroccia dismissed the jurors early for the day telling them:
'We've got no choice. We can't get the equipment to work properly and … it's very, very hot.'
— The Athletic's Dan Robson contributed reporting remotely from Toronto.
(Photo by Peter Power / AFP via Getty Images)
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But they weren't told the investigator knew police wanted access to her The players were 'compelled' to sit for an interview with Hockey Canada. But they weren't told the investigator knew police wanted access to her The complainant acknowledged in her testimony at the trial this year that the statement is riddled with errors and was actually written by her civil lawyers. Ryan said on Monday she thought there were 'important' differences between what the complainant told London police in 2018 and what she wrote in her statement in 2022, while confirming she never re-interviewed the complainant as part of the reopened probe. Hart's lawyer, Riaz Sayani, asked Ryan if that's because police felt the new statement was an 'effective substitute' for a police interview. 'No,' Ryan said. 'The main reason was we thought we had everything we needed from her and a re-interview would have retraumatizing.' She said it was 'possible' she would have re-interviewed the complainant if she didn't have the statement. Sayani pressed Ryan on whether she thought this statement was 'helpful' in making the case for criminal charges against the players. 'Not sure if I would say it was helpful,' Ryan said. 'It did clarify some points. It didn't hurt either.' Ryan did agree with Sayani's suggestion that the statement provided a 'new interpretation' of what happened in that hotel room in 2018. While Ryan felt the complainant had blamed herself in her 2018 interview with police, in her 2022 statement she seemed to understand that what had happened was not her fault. 'I believe this change can be attributed to her having had four years to think about the events and understand she was not to blame and that her acquiescence did not equal consent,' Ryan wrote in an excerpt of her report read in court. Ryan also never spoke with the work friends who were with the complainant at Jack's Bar the night she met McLeod. She later returned to his hotel room where they had consensual sex, only for multiple men to come in afterward, prompted by texts from McLeod. Sayani suggested that those friends could have provided a different version of events than what the complainant was saying, such as the fact that she actually bought most of her drinks herself rather than the players, and that her friends were messaging her at the bar trying to find her, asking if she wanted help to get away from McLeod, but she said she was fine. Ryan agreed the complainant never told her any of that. Sayani put to Ryan that if the complainant had told her, then police may have wanted to interview those friends to get a better sense of the complainant's state of intoxication and efforts to get away from McLeod. 'Correct, potentially, yeah,' Ryan said.
