‘Numb and on autopilot': Woman details alleged Hockey Canada sex assaults

Hamilton Spectator

06-05-2025

Warning: This story contains graphic details of alleged sexual assault.
After having consensual sex with
hockey player Michael McLeod
in his London, Ont., hotel room, a woman said she felt uncomfortable, vulnerable and scared as other men she didn't know began filing into the room while she was drunk and naked.
Crown Meaghan Cunningham and the complainant, testifying by video.
Before long, the woman told a jury on Monday, she was being asked by other players in the room to fondle herself on the floor, to perform oral sex on them as she was slapped and spat on, and to engage in vaginal intercourse. One man, she said, did the splits over her face while she was on the ground, his penis touching her face.
She didn't want to do any of it, she insisted during her second day of testimony
at the high-profile trial of five professional hockey players
accused of sexual assault. But she felt as if her mind had separated from her body amid all the chaos and confusion, and that her body was engaging in the sexual activity in order to keep her safe in an intimidating environment.
'I felt kind of like I was numb and on autopilot and going through the motions,' she testified, 'watching it all happen and not feeling like I was able to control any of it.'
McLeod, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the woman in the room at the Delta Armouries hotel in the early hours of June 19, 2018. McLeod, who had met the complainant earlier in the evening at Jack's Bar, has also pleaded not guilty to being a party to a sexual assault for allegedly encouraging his teammates on the 2018 Canadian world junior championship team to engage in sexual activities with the complainant when he knew she wasn't consenting.
Text messages sent to the complainant within days of the alleged incident show that McLeod later became aware that police had been called, and he asked the complainant: 'What can you do to make this go away?'
The players were in London at the time to attend the Hockey Canada Foundation's annual Gala & Golf fundraising event and to receive their rings for winning the championship. The Crown has alleged that McLeod had vaginal intercourse with the complainant a second time; that Formenton did as well, but in the bathroom; that McLeod, Dubé and Hart obtained oral sex from the complainant, and that it was Foote who did the splits over the complainant's face and his genitals 'grazed' her face.
The woman, who was 20 at the time and is now 27, completed her examination-in-chief by Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham on Monday afternoon. She began being cross-examined by McLeod's lawyer, David Humphrey, who probed whether the woman agreed to participate in the police investigation due to pressure from family members and questioned whether one of the reasons she was upset was because she had cheated on her boyfriend that night.
'There was a part of me that definitely did feel like that because I was putting a lot of the blame on myself,' she told Humphrey, whose cross-examination continues Tuesday.
'I blamed myself for getting really drunk and not thinking straight for leaving with McLeod.'
In
two videos
taken by McLeod in the hotel room and shown to the jury, the woman said she was 'OK with this' and that 'It was all consensual.' On Monday, she told the jury it very much wasn't.
'I think this is still a point where my mind is disconnected from my body,' she said under questioning by Cunningham about the 'consensual' video. 'I feel like I'm just saying what they're telling me to say or what they want to hear from me,' she said.
Protestors outside the courthouse in London on Friday.
For a second day, protesters stood outside the London courthouse's main entrance to show support for the complainant, holding up signs and chanting as the players, their lawyers, and the jury walked by them. Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia told the jury she was looking into whether they could enter the building through a different entrance, while reminding them to only consider the evidence presented in court when deciding this case.
'You should totally disregard what you see as you walk in and out of this building,' she said.
The complainant, whose identity is covered by a standard publication ban, told the jury on Friday that she met McLeod at Jack's Bar when she was very drunk, and agreed to go back to his hotel. After they had sex, she said on Monday, she saw McLeod appearing to text on his phone before he left the room. That's when two other men came in while she was still naked on the bed, she said.
Michael McLeod films a selfie video with the complainant on the dance floor inside Jack's Bar.
'I was just really shocked by that,' she testified. 'I wasn't expecting that.'
She believes she retreated to the bathroom but when she came out, there were even more men in the room.
'I felt really uncomfortable, I was already naked and drunk and feeling really vulnerable,' she testified. 'I didn't really understand why the man I had left (the bar) with had kind of disappeared and left me in that situation ... So I was feeling scared, I didn't know where things were going.'
The jury has seen a text McLeod sent to his teammates in a group chat after 2 a.m. on June 19, 2018, about a 'three-way' in his room; Hart replied within minutes: 'I'm in.'
The room became more 'amped up' and 'loud' as men gathered, said the complainant. A bedsheet was placed on the floor and she was asked by the men to fondle herself on it. She recalled them making comments about 'putting golf balls in me, in my vagina, and asking if I could take the whole club, put the whole golf club in me.' She said she laughed it off as she didn't know how else to react.
'It just sounded really kind of extreme and painful,' she testified via CCTV from a different room in the courthouse. 'I was kind of worried that that's already what they were asking to see. I didn't know where their minds were going to be for the rest of the night.'
While she was on the floor, three men stood over her with their pants lowered, and she found herself on her knees giving them oral sex, she testified.
'They just start putting penises in my face,' she said, confirming under questioning by Cunningham that there had no prior discussion about oral sex. She said that other men in the room were egging each other on.
Prosecutors intend to show that the woman was complying because she was surrounded by large men
'I was being told to 'Suck it,' commands like that,' the woman said. 'They were also yelling to 'spit,' and 'spit on it,' and at that point I started feeling someone spitting on my back as well.'
She felt like she was 'just watching it all unfold' and wasn't an active participant in what her body was doing, the woman testified.
'I didn't know these men at all, I didn't know how they would react if I did try to say no or try to leave,' she said. 'My mind just kind of shut down and let my body do what it thought it needed to do to keep me safe.'
After the oral sex, she was lying down again on the bed sheet when she said a fourth man with his pants off did the splits over her face.
'I didn't know that was about to happen,' she said. 'And he just put his penis on my face in that moment.'
She said the men were urging each other to have sex with her, and that she felt she had no choice but to go into the bathroom, where she was followed by a man she later identified to police as Formenton — McLeod's roommate at the hotel that night. They had vaginal intercourse using a condom, she said.
'I just know I got up kind of expecting that this was just another thing I had to do, so I got up and he followed me to the bathroom,' she testified.
She said she cried a few times that night and tried to get dressed to leave, but the men would coax her into staying.
'I heard someone say 'Oh, she's crying, don't let her go,'' the woman testified. 'And that's when they would approach me and just try to convince me that this is all fun, this is fine.'
Toward the end of the night, the woman said she performed oral sex on McLeod on the bed as other players stood around — 'I thought if I could finish that up, then I could go.' She could hear someone saying 'No phones,' leading her to wonder if anyone had tried to record what was happening. Several people were also slapping her while she was on the bed with McLeod, she said.
'I remembered it was just multiple people and they were just taking turns trying to hit as hard as they could, and I think that did start to hurt at a certain point and I kind of told them to stop that,' she testified.
Players eventually began leaving, and the woman recalled having intercourse with McLeod again in the bathroom, describing it as 'just one last thing I needed to do before I had to go.'
She said McLeod and Formenton were anxious for her to leave so they could get to sleep, as they had to be up early to play golf. Moments after leaving, she returned looking for a missing ring, but didn't find it and said the two men were unhelpful as they just went back to their beds.
As she made her way down to the lobby to take an Uber home, the complainant said she was hit by a wave of emotions, which she believes she had 'blocked' during her time in the room. She called her best friend, but said she thinks she was probably mostly incoherent on the call.
The series of messages between Michael McLeod and the complainant.
'I was just crying uncontrollably and didn't know what else to do,' she said. 'I didn't want to be alone.'
She returned home, where her mother found her crying in the shower, repeating 'It's all my fault.' Her mother called the police, while her mother's partner called Hockey Canada. McLeod got wind of the police being notified and messaged the complainant after tracking her down on Instagram, asking her to make it go away. At that point, the complainant herself wasn't sure if she wanted to proceed with a criminal investigation.
'I understand that you are embarrassed about what happened,' McLeod told the complainant. 'But you need to talk to your mother right now and straighten things out with the police before this goes too far. This is a serious matter that she is misrepresenting and could have significant implications for a lot of people, including you.'
The complainant ultimately told McLeod that she told the police she didn't want to pursue the matter further 'and that it was a mistake. You should be good now hopefully nothing more comes of it. Sorry again for the misunderstanding.'
But the complainant did pursue the matter with the police, telling the jury on Monday she sent that response to McLeod so that he would leave her alone.
'I appreciate you telling the truth,' McLeod told the woman in his final text to her. 'Thank you all the best.'