‘The whole night was weird, wasn't it?' Prosecution cross-examines ex-NHLer Carter Hart at Hockey Canada sexual assault trial

Hamilton Spectator

a day ago

While
Carter Hart has testified
about being in a London, Ont., hotel room with a woman demanding to have sex with his teammates, the Crown suggested Friday that the players were determined 'to keep her there and do sexual things because it was fun for you guys.'
It was Hart's second day in the witness box as the first accused player to testify in his own defence at the high-profile Hockey Canada sexual assault trial. He testified Thursday that after a night of drinking, he went to teammate Michael McLeod's room at the Delta Armouries hotel in response to a text about a three-way, only to find several of his teammates already there and a woman masturbating on a bedsheet on the floor, asking: 'Can somebody come f—- me?'
The Crown completed its evidence at the Hockey Canada sex assault trial on Thursday morning. Here's what you need to know to catch up, starting
The Crown completed its evidence at the Hockey Canada sex assault trial on Thursday morning. Here's what you need to know to catch up, starting
Hart said in response to the woman's demand, he asked her 'for a blowie, meaning blowjob,' and she responded 'yeah' or 'sure,' crawled toward him, and helped pull down his pants. The oral sex lasted about 30 to 60 seconds. On Friday during cross-examination, Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham questioned whether he took any additional steps to confirm the woman's consent.
'I'm going to suggest that at no time in the room did you ever take her aside and say 'Are you sure you really want to be doing this?'' Cunningham said. 'Seconds later, your penis is in her mouth, and you don't follow up with any sort of 'Are you sure this is really OK? Are you down for this?''
He said he had no memory of doing that but also had no doubts that the woman was consenting. Hart, McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé, and Cal Foote, all former members of the 2018 Canadian world junior championship team, have pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the then-20-year-old woman in the early hours on June 19, 2018, in room 209. Her identity is covered by a standard publication ban.
The woman had met McLeod at Jack's Bar and returned to his room where they had consensual sex, only for multiple men to come in afterward. While she didn't say no nor physically resist,
she testified she only engaged in the sexual activity
as a coping mechanism for being in a room full of men she didn't know. She testified she was crying at times and would try to leave, but the men would always coax her to stay.
Hart completed his testimony on Friday. It remains to be seen whether Formenton, Dubé, and Foote will testify; they are not required to, as the burden of proving a criminal charge always remains with the Crown. Formenton's lawyers said they will confirm whether he's testifying Monday. McLeod's lawyers already indicated this week he will not be testifying.
'There were other guys in the room looking and I do remember making eye contact with somebody,' the former goalie said.
'There were other guys in the room looking and I do remember making eye contact with somebody,' the former goalie said.
Cunningham put to Hart on Friday that the men took 'affirmative steps' to get the woman to stay and that Hart, in particular, went out of his way to make sure she would stay by texting teammate Dante Fabbro to come to the room, thinking he might want to have sex with her. (There's no indication that Fabbro ever came.)
'She kept asking for guys to have sex with her, and I knew that Dante was another single guy on the team,' Hart said.
He said it felt to him that the woman was 'super excited to be there' and didn't want to leave, given how 'forward' she was being in her offers for sex.
'I'd never experienced or seen a girl act like that, I don't know the right word, I think maybe just forward and sexually demanding,' he testified.
But why do you care whether this woman, a total stranger, gets what she's demanding, Cunningham asked Hart.
A composite image of London police Det. Steve Newton's handwritten notes on the complainant's comments during a June 26, 2018, photo-identification interview. Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton are all on trial for sexual assault. (The officer's notes have been excerpted to fit in a single image.)
'I'm going to suggest you must have felt there was something in it for you to go and find another guy willing to have sex with her,' Cunningham said. 'I'm going to suggest it's because you wanted to keep the party going.'
Hart repeated that the woman just kept demanding to have sex, even after leaving the hotel room's bathroom with Formenton, where they had intercourse.
'I'm going to suggest it's your understanding that if no one presents themselves, if no one steps up as tribute, say, she would leave, right?' Cunningham asked Hart.
That was his understanding, but he said he wasn't sure how he felt at the time about the woman staying.
Aside from the oral sex allegation against Hart,
the Crown has also alleged
that McLeod had intercourse with the woman a second time in the bathroom; Formenton separately had intercourse with her in the bathroom; McLeod and Dubé obtained oral sex; Dubé slapped her naked buttocks, and Foote did the splits over her body and his genitals 'grazed' her face.
The complainant herself didn't identify Hart to the police, but other players testified they saw him receive oral sex. Cunningham put to Hart that until he arrived in the hotel room, there had been no prior discussion about what this 'mystery woman' might have wanted to do, and he really didn't know anything about her. All he knew was McLeod had sent a text to a players' group chat about coming to his room for a three-way, and he had also spoken briefly on the phone with McLeod, who said he had a woman in his room who wanted to have sex with some of his teammates.
'So you'd agree with me then that anything you knew about her willingness or interest in engaging in sexual activity, anything you knew about that before you arrived at the Delta hotel, came directly from Mr. McLeod?' Cunningham asked Hart.
'I'm going to suggest, Mr. Hart, you were putting a lot faith in your friend Mr. McLeod to set something up that was morally acceptable to you.'
Hart agreed. He was open to the idea of going as he was a single 19-year-old man at the time hoping for a sexual encounter, who had also expressed an interest in the group chat to going to see 'rippers' — meaning strippers — prior to McLeod's 3-way text. But he maintained in his testimony he wasn't going to make up his mind until he was in the room and saw the woman.
'I hadn't met the woman yet, so I hadn't seen what she looked like or if she was OK with it,' he said Friday.
A screenshot of a group chat involving members of Canada's 2018 world junior championship team.
Hart had replied 'I'm in' in response to McLeod's text, but disagreed with Cunningham's suggestion that he knew the activity could actually involve more than three people.
Cunningham also pointed to examples of Hart's 'faulty memory' of being in the room: he couldn't quite remember what McLeod was wearing when he first walked in or of McLeod getting food that players then ate, he couldn't remember if player Brett Howden was there —
Howden has testified he was
— and he couldn't remember McLeod recording videos of the complainant on his phone
saying she was consenting while smiling
. This despite the fact that Hart can be heard in the background of one of the videos saying 'I'll get Fabbs, I'll get Fabbs,' in relation Fabbro, whom he texted two minutes after the video was taken, writing: 'Get to 209.'
Hart also couldn't recall if he received oral sex from the woman a second time,
something McLeod told police in a 2018 statement
, nor could he recall anyone slapping the complainant. Asked if it's possible that happened, Hart replied: 'It's hard to say because I don't think anybody would have done anything to hurt her.' He repeated what he testified Thursday, which is that if he saw anything done to the complainant that she didn't want or that was disrespectful or degrading, he would have put a stop to it or left.
'So you know for sure you never felt like things were getting out of hand in that room, even though you can only remember less than half of what took place?' Cunningham asked him. Hart said yes.
Cal Foote does the splits at Jack's Bar in London on the night of June 18-19, 2018, while teammates Brett Howden (on the far side of Foote, in white with a lighter-coloured backwards ball cap) and Dillon Dubé (in white on the near side of Foote) clear space on the dance floor.
Hart, who played as a goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers prior to his arrest last year, also testified Thursday about seeing Foote doing the splits over the complainant's body while she was lying on the ground between the beds; he said he was sure Foote was clothed and his body did not make contact with the complainant's, who he said was laughing.
He explained that the splits were a 'pretty cool thing' that Foote was able to do upon request; surveillance footage shows he did the splits on the dancefloor at Jack's earlier that night. Men in the hotel room were egging him on to do it again, Hart said.
'Like hey Footer, do the splits,' Hart said. 'That was just kind of a thing he did. He's a big, tall dude, super flexible.'
A photo of room 209 at the Delta Armouries hotel in London, Ont., marked up by Carter Hart during his testimony, depicting Cal Foote doing the splits over the complainant while she's on a bedsheet on the floor, as well as the positions of other players.
Player Tyler Steenbergen
also previously testified
he partially saw Foote do the splits, but couldn't see what he was wearing, while the complainant herself testified that the genitals of the person who did the splits made contact with her face but she couldn't identify who it was.
On Friday, Cunningham had Hart draw the splits on a photo of the hotel room. She suggested that Foote doing the splits, but without his pants, was just one more thing the players were trying to do to keep the woman in the room, seeing as most of them didn't actually want to have sex with her. Cunningham first confirmed with Hart if knew what 'teabagging' meant, which she defined as 'when a guy sort of squats or lowers himself over someone's face and dunks his testicles into her face or mouth.'
'You'd agree with me from your perspective there's nothing particularly exciting about seeing a fully clothed guy, who everyone already knows can do the splits, do the splits, right?' Cunningham said.
Hart agreed.
'What would be more exciting,' the Crown attorney continued, 'would be to see a man with no pants on do the splits right over (the complainant's) face, essentially teabagging her. Don't you agree that'd be more exciting?'
Hart responded: 'I mean, that'd be pretty weird.'
Cunningham shot back: 'Well, the whole night was weird, wasn't it?'
Hart agreed.