Carter Hart found not guilty in Hockey Canada sexual assault trial
Decisions on Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, and Alex Formenton — like Hart, members of Canada's 2018 world junior hockey team — will be released as Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia continues to issue her judgments.
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All five men were charged with sexual assault in connection to an alleged incident in June 2018 in which a woman known publicly as E.M. — her identity is protected by a publication ban — said she was sexually assaulted over the span of several hours in a London, Ont., hotel room. The players were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their victory at the World Junior championships earlier that year.
Carroccia delivered her decision on Thursday, nearly six weeks after legal arguments concluded, and seven years after the alleged assault was first reported to London police.
Carroccia said that she did not find E.M.'s evidence 'credible or reliable,' in explaining her reasoning.
'Having found that I cannot rely upon the evidence of E.M. and then considering the evidence in this trial as a whole, I conclude that the Crown cannot meet its onus on any of the counts before me,' Carroccia said earlier in the day.
'Having found that I cannot rely upon the evidence of E.M. and then considering the evidence in this trial as a whole, I conclude that the Crown cannot meet its onus on any of the counts before me,' the judge said.
E.M. and McLeod met at Jack's, a popular bar in London, and after a night of drinking and dancing, left to have consensual sex at McLeod's hotel in the early-morning hours of June 19, 2018. After that sexual encounter, E.M. said that McLeod invited his teammates to his room to engage in sexual activity, without her knowledge or consent.
The allegations became public in late May 2022, when TSN reported that Hockey Canada settled a civil lawsuit with E.M.
Later that year, The Globe and Mail reported that Hockey Canada had historically used money partially drawn from registration fees to settle allegations of sexual abuse; the organization's CEO and board of directors subsequently resigned, and an exodus of major sponsors ensued. That year's World Junior Championships in Edmonton were held without sponsors.
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No charges were laid after the initial probe into the incident, however, a renewed criminal investigation ended in sexual assault charges against the five players filed in January 2024, with McLeod facing a second charge of sexual assault for 'being a party to the offense.'
During her testimony, E.M. said that over the course of the night, she was pressured to perform a number of sexual acts with the players, including oral sex with McLeod, Hart and Dubé and vaginal sex with Formenton. She also said she was slapped on the buttocks and that Foote did the splits over her and grazed his genitals in her face.
The Crown argued that E.M. did not voluntarily consent to any of the specific sexual activity and that once men began arriving in the room, E.M. found herself in a 'highly stressful' and 'unpredictable' situation that caused her to feel fear. Naked, drunk and in a room of what she said were eight to 10 men who were strangers to her, E.M. described feeling vulnerable and unsure of what would happen if she did not do what they wanted. She detailed going on 'autopilot' — dissociating as a trauma response to get through the night.
The defense's case centered around E.M.'s credibility, which all five legal teams repeatedly questioned and sought to undermine. Attorneys for the accused argued that E.M. was the instigator of the group sex, urging McLeod to invite his teammates back to the hotel room for a 'wild night.'
The Crown has not yet indicated if it plans to appeal the judge's ruling.
This story will be updated.
(Courtroom sketch of Justice Maria Carroccia and some of the defendants from earlier during the Hockey Canada sexual assault by Alexandra Newbould / The Canadian Press via AP)
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