Potential of a surprise Crown witness sparks courtroom spat at Hockey Canada trial
In an animated exchange at the end of Wednesday's proceedings, Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham told Justice Maria Carroccia that the Crown was 'nearing the end' of its case but that there were some 'late-breaking events' about an additional witness who may be called, prompting defense attorney Megan Savard to object to the timing.
Advertisement
'Sorry, Your Honor,' Savard said. 'This was, I think, the first we're hearing that this is not the Crown's last witness.'
Savard said that the defense was just learning about this development and asked the Crown to make a decision by the end of Wednesday's proceedings to provide the defense ample notice to prepare its own evidence. Carroccia rejected that bid from Savard, stating that Cunningham was 'entitled to think about that.'
Cunningham pushed back on Savard's complaint of late notice, stating that she had sent an email to defense attorneys on Tuesday about the potential availability of a player who had recently returned to Canada.
'It's simply not true that this is the first time she's heard of that,' Cunningham said.
Savard argued that the player hadn't even yet been subpoenaed. Cunningham fired back that he had, which elicited a stern response from Carroccia: 'OK, all right, enough,' the justice said. 'Enough.'
Cunningham said she will have more information about whether the Crown will call that player as a witness, or conclude its case, Thursday morning.
The heated back-and-forth ended a day in which retired London Police sergeant Stephen Newton took the stand again, shedding significant light into the 2018 police investigation of allegations that members of the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team sexually assaulted a 20-year-old woman in a London, Ont., hotel room while they were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their championship run. That testimony centered around the investigative efforts he made throughout the course of the police probe, as well as the avenues he did not pursue.
Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton and Cal Foote are each accused of sexual assault. All five players pleaded not guilty in the trial, which is now in its sixth week.
Advertisement
The complainant in the case, known as E.M. because her name is protected by a publication ban, said she was degraded, humiliated, slapped and spit on by players who encouraged her to perform a number of what she described as non-consensual sexual acts over the course of several hours. She said the players, who had golf clubs, also told her to insert a golf club and golf balls in her vagina, and that she felt vulnerable and scared throughout the course of the night.
Newton said he never felt he had grounds to support a finding that she was too intoxicated or incapacitated to consent, based on what he observed on both surveillance videos of her entering and leaving the hotel and multiple videos filmed of E.M. in the early-morning hours of June 19, 2018, provided by McLeod's attorneys. Newton also said that he had a concern that there also 'may have been a level of consent given her active involvement.'
When asked by the Crown about his investigative efforts, Newton said he obtained surveillance video from Jack's bar where E.M. and the players had been prior to the alleged incident, but did not review those videos. Instead, he said he kept those videos in storage. He also said he did not send the clothes he collected from E.M. for forensic analysis, nor did he send search warrants or production orders for Hockey Canada's investigative records.
Newton was the lead detective on the case when E.M. first made a report just days after the alleged incident and until it was closed in February 2019. (The case was later reopened, leading to the current charges.)
As part of his time on the stand on Wednesday, the Crown played a videotaped interview Newton did with Formenton in November 2018, approximately five months after his first interview with E.M., and an audio interview with Dubé the following month. Those interviews, which the players agreed to on a voluntary basis after Newton informed them he did not have grounds to charge them with sexual assault, highlighted discrepancies amongst player testimony and provided further insight into Newton's investigative efforts.
Advertisement
In his interview, Formenton said on the night in question he received a text message from McLeod asking him if he wanted to come back to the hotel to have a three-way. (Newton asked Formenton if he had this message during the interview but moved on after Formenton told him he got a new phone; he never followed up with McLeod about the message.) When he got to the hotel room, Formenton said he encountered E.M. fully clothed and chatting with players. He said she later got undressed and performed oral sex on Hart. He said she was then asking other players to have sex with her but that a bunch of the players 'didn't feel comfortable' having sex in front of each other.
'So I volunteered,' Formenton said. 'But I honestly didn't want to do it in front of guys. I found that very awkward and weird.'
Formenton said he had vaginal and oral sex with E.M. in the bathroom. He said that E.M. later performed oral sex on Dubé in the main room for approximately 10 minutes. Asked what he observed as E.M. performed various sexual acts, he said that the other players in the room 'were just sitting there watching.'
Multiple players who have testified previously described speaking to one another and 'hanging out' but not watching the acts because they felt 'awkward.'
Formenton said he noticed that E.M. was 'embarrassed' at times throughout the night because players didn't want to have sex with her but disputed any notion that she was taken advantage of by anyone.
'I mean, she was instigating pretty much everything that happened,' Formenton told Newton. 'She wanted everything that happened. She had free will to give the oral sex to everyone and our sex was consensual.'
Dubé, in his interview with Newton, referenced being the captain of the 2018 team and said that he 'would have controlled the guys' and 'kicked guys out' if he had thought she wasn't able to consent. He said of E.M. that he 'felt like she wanted to be there more than us' and was 'chirping' those who didn't engage with her sexually.
Advertisement
'I didn't really want to be there, to be honest,' Dubé said. 'That was kind of not what I'm about. I don't really need that in my life.'
Dubé said E.M. performed oral sex on him for 10 to 15 seconds.
'I was just like, no, this isn't good. I don't want to do this,' Dubé said, adding that he stumbled back and off the side of the room with his pants around his ankles.
Dubé said it was at this time he suggested to Foote that they both leave the room.
Newton asked Dube if he recalled anybody mentioning a golf club, to which he replied:
'Uh, yeah, I had one in my hand,' adding that the players were slated to golf the next day.
When questioned further about what he did with the golf club, Dubé said he had it in his hand and E.M. goaded him about whether he was going to play golf or have sex with her.
Dubé is accused of slapping E.M. on the buttocks, though Newton did not ask Dubé about this during his interview. In cross-examination, Dubé's attorney, Julie Santarossa, said that Foote previously told Newton in an audio interview that he heard that Dube was touching her butt. When asked why he didn't ask Dubé about this, Newton replied that he may have overlooked it:
'Maybe I missed that,' he said.
On Tuesday, McLeod's first police interview from 2018 was shown, revealing differences in at least one key area to defense attorney arguments in the trial.
The trial will resume Thursday, at which point, the Crown is expected to share more information about whether it will call an additional witness.
— The Athletic's Dan Robson reported from Toronto and The Athletic's Kamila Hinkson reported remotely from Montreal.
(Photo by Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press via AP, File)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Former Cop Says He Routinely Confiscated Guns, Fentanyl and Cocaine at Tesla Factory
A lawsuit filed by Ozell Murray, a former police officer fired as head of security at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, suggests the plant has a severe sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse, and rampant racism problem. According to the 159-page federal suit, first obtained by The Independent, the officer's team "routinely" confiscated cocaine, fentanyl, and guns onsite. His team also investigated "acts of sexual deviance" and sent employees "home for being alcohol-intoxicated and high on drugs." The startling allegations aren't the first warnings of workplace trouble at the facility. The Fremont factory has already garnered a reputation for rampant racism, with a previous lawsuit raising concerns over racist graffiti — "KKK epithets, a swastika, and the N-word all over the bathroom" — and mistreatment of workers. Black employees have also said that nooses — a symbol of racial violence from America's history of fatal lynchings — were used to taunt them at work. Tesla has already settled in court over accusations of racial discrimination at the factory. Worse yet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a long track record of waging a war against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, while furthering white supremacist conspiracy theories. He even infamously performed two Nazi salutes at Donald Trump's post-inauguration celebration earlier this year. He has previously blamed the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year on Black firefighters and suggested that Black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have lower IQs and shouldn't become pilots. He's also been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior, including against employees, on several occasions. In other words, the abysmal situation at the mercurial billionaire's first car factory in California — a home state he abandoned in favor of Texas years ago — is closely wrapped up in his own personal beliefs. In his lawsuit, Murray accused Tesla of putting profits over everything. "Healthy profits have always been more important to the Company than a healthy working environment," reads the suit obtained by The Independent. "For Tesla, more bodies on the manufacturing line meant more vehicles flying out the factory door — no matter how unclean the hands were that were assembling those cars." According to the complaint, supervisors also abused the company's policy on drug and alcohol use. "As it turned out, many supervisors and managers were merely using the policy as a means to retaliate against their subordinates — and, in particular, when a line employee had turned down the supervisor or manager's sexual advances," the complaint reads. "Or, when the manager or supervisor wanted to retaliate against someone because of their race or ethnicity," it goes on. "Or, when the manager or supervisor wanted to retaliate against someone because of a complaint an employee had lodged against them." According to the document, a specific manager continuously fostered the "delusion that the environment and culture at Tesla is one of tolerance and innovation, rather than racism and retaliation." Murray also accused the company of firing him "under the pretextual guise of 'poor performance.'" Beyond racial discrimination, Tesla's Fremont factory also has long been accused of fostering an unsafe work environment, including reports of crushed limbs, workers fainting from dehydration, and fires. An employee there also murdered a colleague in the parking lot several years ago. Earlier this year, Tesla was fined for violating California's workplace heat protection rules. Workers are known to have borne the brunt of Musk's "ultra hardcore" work culture, including 12-hour shifts, often putting them at risk of injury. In 2020, a Tesla factory worker described working conditions to SF Weekly as a "life and death situation." A separate worker called the plant a "modern-day sweatshop." Murray, alongside his co-defendants, is seeking compensatory, emotional distress, punitive, and exemplary damages, accusing Tesla of retaliation, wrongful termination, and failure to prevent unlawful discrimination. It's ironic in the face of the allegations, but Musk has spent the last week raging about crime rates — even though violent crime just hit its lowest level in the United States since the 1960s. More on the Fremont plant: Elon Musk Is Shutting Down the Part of the Government That Helped Him Save Tesla Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act verification rules
Wikipedia has lost a legal challenge to new Online Safety Act rules which it says could threaten the human rights and safety of its volunteer editors. The Wikimedia Foundation - the non-profit which supports the online encyclopaedia - wanted a judicial review of regulations which could mean Wikipedia has to verify the identities of its users. But it said despite the loss, the judgement "emphasized the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected". The government told the BBC it welcomed the High Court's judgment, "which will help us continue our work implementing the Online Safety Act to create a safer online world for everyone". Judicial reviews challenge the lawfulness of the way in which a decision has been made by a public body. In this case the Wikimedia Foundation and a Wikipedia editor tried to challenge the way in which the government decided to make regulations covering which sites should be classed "Category 1" under the Online Safety Act - the strictest rules sites must follow. It argued the rules were logically flawed and too broad, meaning a policy intended to impose extra rules on large social media companies would instead apply to Wikipedia. In particular the foundation is concerned the extra duties required - if Wikipedia was classed as Category 1 - would mean it would have to verify the identity of its contributors, undermining their privacy and safety. The only way it could avoid being classed as Category 1 would be to cut the number of people in the UK who could access the online encyclopaedia by about three-quarters, or disable key functions on the site. The government's lawyers argued that ministers had considered whether Wikipedia should be exempt from the regulations but had reasonably rejected the idea. 'Left the door open' In the end, the court rejected Wikimedia's arguments. But Phil Bradley-Schmieg, Lead Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, said the judgment did not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State, in Mr Justice Johnson's words, "a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia's operations". And the judgement makes it clear other legal challenges could be possible. Wikimedia could potentially challenge Ofcom's decision making if the regulator did ultimately decide to classify the site as Category 1. And if the effect of making Wikipedia Category 1 meant it could not continue to operate, then other legal challenges could follow. "Wikipedia has been caught in the stricter regulations due to its size and user created content even though it argues (convincingly) that it differs significantly from other user-to-user platforms," said Mona Schroedel, data protection litigation specialist at law firm Freeths. "The court's decision has left the door open for Wikipedia to be exempt from the stricter rules upon review." The communications regulator Ofcom, which will enforce the act, told the BBC: "We note the court's judgment and will continue to progress our work in relation to categorised services and the associated extra online safety rules for those companies." Wikipedia legally challenges 'flawed' online safety rules
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Abusive PE teacher who attacked boys over 27 years exploited trust, court finds
An abusive PE teacher who subjected pupils at an elite private school to physical and sexual assaults was found to have exploited a position of trust for almost 30 years. John Young, 91, was found to have targeted pupils while employed as a PE teacher at the independent Edinburgh Academy between 1966 and 1993 after an Examination of Facts hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court found 26 charges to be established, out of 44 charges alleged by prosecutors. Young was deemed medically unfit to face criminal trial or appear in court but evidence was heard from 24 former pupils, and a further three witnesses, with allegations spanning almost 30 years. Some of the victims told the court that Young would use violence as punishment, including hitting them with a cricket bat, megaphone or wooden wedge, or punching them, leading to issues with lifelong trauma for some. Prosecutors hailed the fact-finding exercise as a 'matter of public record' and said that Young 'had a duty of care to nurture and support these children but instead intentionally exploited his power to violate and humiliate them'. A sheriff ruled on 10 charges of assault, three charges of indecent assault, eight charges of lewd and libidinous behaviour, four charges of breaching the peace, and one charge of cruel and unnatural treatment, according to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS). However two victims told of their sorrow that it was not a full conviction, and their belief that 'hundreds' of pupils may have been attacked. A letter from July 1992 was published, where the parent of one boy complained about Young instructing pupils to remove their underwear before putting on their gym shorts, and complaining that this was not conventional practice at four other named schools. Prosecutor Fiona Kirkby said: 'John Young systematically abused young boys, over a period of 27 years, while holding a significant position of trust as their teacher at the Edinburgh Academy. 'He had a duty of care to nurture and support these children but instead intentionally exploited his power to violate and humiliate them. 'This Examination of Facts is a public airing of the facts and an acknowledgement that what happened to these children was criminal. 'It should never have occurred. It is now a matter of public record that Young committed offences including lewd and libidinous behaviour, indecent assault and cruel and unnatural treatment. 'The court's finding today also sends a clear message to abusers: no matter who you are, when the abuse happened or how long after the event it is reported, there will be a robust response from prosecutors.' Procurator Fiscal Fiona Kirkby added: 'Sexual abuse and the use of force upon children is a crime. 'To any victim of such offending, we urge you to report it when you feel ready and able to do so. Be assured you will be listened to and supported. We remain committed to investigating and pursuing those culpable to seek conclusions.' The first survivor, who was subjected to a barrage of blows during a classroom attack, said: 'Young was at the Academy for decades and taught PE to nearly every boy so it would not surprise me if hundreds more were affected. 'I think the school had lots of opportunities to prevent his abuse. I believe my complaint was taken to Young so the school could silence my complaint rather than address it. 'It's a shame that I and other survivors are denied the chance to get a conviction – I hope police and fiscals get the chance to act quickly against abusers in the future, so the chance for others to secure justice is not lost.' The second survivor added: 'For decades survivors like myself have been accused of lying, exaggerating or misremembering but now we have a black and white decision that finally acknowledges us. 'Although it's not a full conviction I think it's still better than what the school ever did. 'I find it unfair that I had to endure brutal cross-examinations while the person involved gets to sit at home. Ultimately, we secured the best possible outcome.'
