In first appearance at Hockey Canada trial, E.M. describes drunkenness and discomfort
LONDON, Ont. — The woman at the center of the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial recounted a 'chaotic' night of drinking and dancing, in which she said she felt 'claustrophobic,' 'surrounded' and 'uncomfortable.'
It was the first time the jury saw or heard from the complainant who said she was sexually assaulted by multiple players in a London, Ont., hotel room in June 2018. The players and other members of the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their championship run. Her testimony on Friday centered around the events leading up to the alleged incident and gave jurors insight into her state of mind in the hours before. Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote are all facing sexual assault charges stemming from the alleged incident. All five players pleaded not guilty to charges last week.
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Those five players encountered almost two dozen protestors gathered near the entrance of the courthouse, holding up signs and chanting 'Break the silence! Stop the violence!' as they and their legal teams entered the building Friday morning.
Testifying via closed-circuit television from a different room within the courthouse, E.M. — whose name is protected by a publication ban — recalled being nervous about hanging out with new friends on June 18, 2018.
She said she was hesitant to go out but reluctant to turn down an invitation from her co-workers because it felt like a potential opportunity to get to know them better. She drank two Mike's Hard Lemonades as she got ready after work, which helped her feel a bit more relaxed, she said.
When she arrived at Jack's Bar — a popular drinking establishment on Richmond Street — she had four shots in a short time, trying to calm her nerves.
It was the beginning of a night of drinking that, she said, lowered her inhibitions, left her off balance and with blurry vision.
She described a chaotic scene, with loud music and a packed dance floor.
'I was becoming less aware of my surroundings, my vision was a little blurry,' she said. 'Mentally, I felt all over the place.'
In recalling that night, E.M. appeared nervous, admitting as much as she apologized several times when asking to have surveillance footage played back.
As Crown Attorney Meaghan Cunningham questioned her about that night, she described being approached on the dance floor by a young man. After they danced for a little bit, he brought her over to meet another guy. His name was Mikey, she said. E.M. later identified him as McLeod.
After taking several shots with 'Mikey,' she said she was already quite drunk. E.M. said that over the course of the night at Jack's she had eight shots, one mixed drink and one beer.
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'Mikey' was part of a group that she noticed seemed to stay together wherever they went, from the dance floor to the bar.
'They seemed close. They were really dancing together all in a group on the dance floor or going back to the bar together, getting shots and drinks,' she said. 'They were moving as a group.'
At the bar, an older man — whom she believed to be in his late 30s — seemed to buy drinks for the group, and poured a shot into her mouth, she said.
The man acted as 'wingman' for McLeod, she said. She recalled the man telling her that McLeod was a 'really good guy' and that she should 'take care of him.'
On the dance floor, E.M. said she danced with McLeod, while the group of young men surrounded her. She described their actions as 'odd' and not something she was used to experiencing in a bar.
'I felt uncomfortable. They kept taking turns dancing with me. Everyone was really close together. I was feeling very sandwiched in,' she said. 'Just a lot of passing back and forth, I don't even think I was even aware at some point who I was dancing with. … They circled all around me and I was in the center of that.'
It felt odd, she said, that 'Mikey' seemed OK with the other guys grabbing at her and pulling her away to dance with them. One would pick her up. And then others would push into her from both sides. There was a lot of uncomfortable touching. They grabbed her hand and tried to move it to their crotches, she said.
In one clip, one of the men pulls on her ponytail. In another part of the video, a man picked her off the ground, lifting her up around his waist. At a different part of the clip, another man smacks her on the buttocks. E.M. told Cunningham that she could not recall any of those incidents.
In a video taken from McLeod's phone, E.M. saw herself smiling, eyes closed inside a circle of the young men. She was very intoxicated, she said, and didn't realize the video was being taken. Watching another video, which featured a crush of dancing bodies and strobing lights, she identified herself and recalled what she was feeling at the time: 'It just felt very claustrophobic.'
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She and McLeod kissed at the bar, she said. She said he mentioned he wanted to take her home and that he 'couldn't wait to have fun with me.' Initially, she said she was attracted to him. But as the night went on and she became more inebriated, she felt the need to 'regroup' in the bathroom. She hoped going to the bathroom might give her a way out of telling him no.
She said she felt that because of their interactions for much of the night, he assumed they'd be going home together.
'In general, I'm just someone who has a bit of a hard time saying no and I don't like upsetting others and then when I'm drunk I think that kind of really shows,' she said.
She said she felt OK going home with him, but said she wouldn't have done so if she hadn't been drunk.
'I thought it was maybe easier to kind of go along with that than to say no,' she said.
E.M.'s testimony for the day ended with her and McLeod arriving at the Delta hotel.
Prior to E.M.'s testimony, Boris Katchouk — a member of the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team who now plays for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League — told jurors that he arrived to the Delta Armouries hotel shortly after 2:20 a.m. on June 19, 2018.
He was heavily inebriated, he said, because he'd celebrated his birthday and the team's gold medal.
Katchouk said he saw McLeod standing outside his room on the second floor, and he invited him in. Once there, McLeod asked Katchouk if he wanted a 'gummer' ('gummer' is slang for oral sex.)
The 26-year-old Katchouk said that he saw a woman on the bed, underneath the covers. Cunningham asked Katchouk who else was in the room when McLeod asked him if he wanted oral sex.
'It was just me and Mikey,' Katchouk said. 'She was there on the bed as well, sorry.'
Asked about his reaction to McLeod's question, Katchouk told Cunningham he had a girlfriend at the time, so 'there was nothing for me to really think about it.' He said he couldn't recall if the woman made any kind of reaction when McLeod made the comment.
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'I believe I just laughed and didn't really talk about it after that,' he said.
McLeod left the room and a short time passed before he returned with Taylor Raddysh (another member of the 2018 team who was staying in the next room), Katchouk said.
Katchouk testified that the three teammates spoke briefly in the room, before Raddysh said, 'Bo let's get out of here.'
And then they left, Katchouk said.
Raddysh, who now plays for the Washington Capitals, also testified remotely.
Raddysh said he was only in the hotel room for a few minutes and didn't know whether the woman he saw on the bed, under the covers, was clothed or not; he said he only observed her trapezius muscles.
The 27-year-old Raddysh answered questions by relying on a transcript of a July 2018 statement he made to investigators regarding the events from that weekend, and said that at one point during the early-morning hours of June 19, 2018, he heard 'talking,' 'chattering,' 'hooting' and 'hollering' from the room next door to his, which was McLeod's hotel room.
(Courtroom sketch of defendants and Justice Maria Carroccia early in the trial / Alexandra Newbould / The Canadian Press via AP)
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Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Complainant ‘actually quite upset' police reopened Hockey Canada sex assault case, London detective testifies
The complainant in the Hockey Canada sexual assault case 'was actually quite upset' when a London, Ont., police detective broke the news to her in 2022 that the force was taking a second look at its initial investigation that had led to no criminal charges , the detective testified Monday as the high-profile trial wrapped up. 'I felt pretty bad because it felt like ... I got the sense that I was opening up some wounds that she was trying to close,' said Det. Lyndsey Ryan, who was tasked in the summer of 2022 with leading the reopened probe. 'I think it was a bit overwhelming. She wasn't expecting this.' Ryan was the last witness to testify at the trial, with closing arguments expected to begin next Monday. Of the five former members of the 2018 Canadian world junior championship team on trial, only player Carter Hart ended up testifying in his own defence, telling the court that his sexual contact with the complainant was consensual. The complainant had alleged that she was sexually assaulted by multiple members of the team in a room at the Delta Armouries hotel in the early hours of June 19, 2018, when she was 20 years old. London police initially declined to lay any criminal charges in February 2019. As the Star reported last month , lead detective Steve Newton felt the video surveillance footage of the complainant walking unaided in heels contradicted her assertion she was too intoxicated to consent. Cellphone videos taken of the complainant in the hotel room, in which she says 'it was all consensual ,' also led Newton to have doubts that a crime had been committed, as he wondered in his report whether the complainant had been an 'active participant' in the hotel room. The force decided to review its initial investigation amid intense public pressure in 2022, after TSN reported that Hockey Canada had settled, for an undisclosed sum, a $3.5-million lawsuit filed by the complainant that year against the organization and eight unnamed John Doe players. London police documents make clear the high-profile sex assault investigation was reopened in 2022 due to 'a resurgence in media attention' — with London police documents make clear the high-profile sex assault investigation was reopened in 2022 due to 'a resurgence in media attention' — with London police ultimately charged Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube, and Cal Foote in early 2024 with sexual assault, though at the time remained silent on why they had reopened their investigation. The force acknowledged in court filings it was as a result of public scrutiny, noting 'the media attention surrounding this event is significant.' Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia also pressed Ryan on Monday at the players' trial to answer why the force was taking a second look. 'We just wanted to make sure any loose ends were tied up if there were any, so it was a review to make sure everything was done properly,' Ryan testified. Carroccia continued: 'A review because of the Hockey Canada resolution of the civil suit?' Ryan replied: 'Yes, exactly.' Ryan was actually called to the stand by Formenton's lawyer, Daniel Brown, who just briefly asked her whether his client had a criminal record. She confirmed he doesn't. Brown indicated to the court he will not be calling his client to testify in his own defence, especially given the fact the Crown has already entered Formenton's police interview in 2018 as an exhibit , in which he maintains he engaged in consensual intercourse with the complainant in the hotel room bathroom. A similar reason was given last week for why McLeod won't be testifying. Lawyers for Dube and Foote also confirmed Monday they will not be testifying. The only player to testify in his own defence is Hart, who said he asked the complainant for oral sex and she said yes . Court records show that London police approached the case from a different angle in 2022: that although the complainant never said no and didn't physically resist, she only went along with the sexual activity because she was intimidated to be in a room full of men she didn't know, and the players should have known she wasn't actually consenting. One of the few new pieces of evidence in 2022 was a statement the complainant told Ryan about, which she had prepared for separate probes being conducted by Hockey Canada and the NHL . The complainant told Ryan that she believed the statement would 'clarify' some of those organizations' questions. 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 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.
New York Times
2 days ago
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With testimony concluded, Hockey Canada sexual assault trial nears completion
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5 days ago
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‘The whole night was weird, wasn't it?' Prosecution cross-examines ex-NHLer Carter Hart at Hockey Canada sexual assault trial
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.
