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Globe and Mail
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Globe and Mail
Hockey Canada sex-assault trial won't consider 2022 statements told to investigator
On Oct. 1, 2022, Michael McLeod walked a Hockey Canada investigator through his version of what happened on the night that he and some of his teammates are alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman at a downtown hotel in London, Ont., four years earlier. The investigator, a Toronto lawyer named Danielle Robitaille, asked him questions about when he first met the complainant – a woman known only as E.M. because of a publication ban – at a bar called Jack's. In Mr. McLeod's telling, E.M. was one of a number of girls hanging around the players on the dance floor. He told Ms. Robitaille they hit it off. He bought her a drink. She bought him one. 'This kept happening,' he said. At one point, they walked over to a sidebar, where a representative from Nike was buying 'Jägerbomb' drinks – a mix of red bull and Jägermeister. Mr. McLeod told Ms. Robitaille he saw E.M. take three Jägerbombs. Shortly after, they decided to go to the bathroom, but E.M. slipped and fell, getting covered in beer before she got back up, Mr. McLeod said. He told Ms. Robitaille he thinks she slipped because the floor was wet, not because she was drunk. The fall was a brief moment in the narrative of the night, but one that has become a point of contention at the players' criminal trial and an example of inconsistencies that have emerged in the case. Mr. McLeod denied seeing the woman fall when he first talked to police in 2018, according to the Crown, and several of the players' defence lawyers pressed E.M. during cross-examination about whether Mr. McLeod witnessed the fall. Mr. McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote are each accused of sexually assaulting E.M. in the hotel room. Mr. McLeod faces a second charge of being a party to sexual assault. The men have all pleaded not guilty and the trial is expected to continue in London for several more weeks. But the judge hearing the case, Justice Maria Carroccia, won't be able to consider Mr. McLeod's statement to Ms. Robitaille, which was ruled inadmissible during pre-trial motions. Nor will she have access to what two of the other accused players – Mr. Formenton and Mr. Dubé – told Ms. Robitaille or be able to see what the Crown has identified as inconsistencies between those statements and what the players told police. A different judge hearing pre-trial motions ruled that the way Ms. Robitaille and Hockey Canada obtained the players' statements – by threatening them with a lifetime ban and publicity if they didn't co-operate – was coercive and that allowing them into evidence would violate the players' fair trial rights. The judge noted Hockey Canada had told police it would waive solicitor-client privilege, and once the organization received a request from police to hand over its investigative file, Ms. Robitaille cancelled interviews in 2022 with Mr. Hart and Mr. Foote. In the fall of 2022, when Ms. Robitaille interviewed Mr. McLeod, Mr. Formenton and Mr. Dubé, Hockey Canada was under intense public scrutiny. Six months earlier, in the spring of 2022, Hockey Canada had settled a lawsuit with the complainant without the players' knowledge. Ms. Robitaille later said in a pre-trial hearing that she used the woman's statement of claim to challenge some of the players' previous assertions. 'That's when I obtained, in my view, more truthful versions from the players,' Ms. Robitaille said. Last Friday's decision by Justice Carroccia to dismiss the jury and proceed with the case against the five accused players by judge alone, lifts the publication ban on a trove of documents, including Ms. Robitaille's interviews with three of the accused. The notes from those interviews, contained in a 214-page document, are in most cases handwritten summaries, none of which have been tested in court. Lawyers representing these players declined to comment on their contents. Other apparent inconsistencies revealed in the documents include that Mr. Dubé told Ms. Robitaille that he slapped E.M.'s buttocks, though he did not mention this to police, the Crown told a pre-trial hearing last year. The Crown also argued in pre-trial hearings that the transcripts include several discrepancies between what Mr. Formenton told the investigator and what he told police. They also show that he returned for a second interview with Ms. Robitaille to correct information he told her. None of that information can come into the trial. Crown prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham argued in a pre-trial hearing last fall that she should be able to use the Hockey Canada interviews to challenge what the players told police and what they could say at the trial if they choose to testify. 'This is really about whether the accused, if they choose to testify, should be able to say whatever they want on the stand with impunity, knowing they can't be confronted with what they said previously,' Ms. Cunningham said. 'The credibility and reliability of the accused, should they choose to testify, will be of central importance to this trial.' Ms. Cunningham seized on Mr. McLeod's varying accounts of the fall as an example of why the interview notes should be admitted. The handwritten notes from Mr. McLeod's interview with Ms. Robitaille show that Mr. McLeod acknowledged seeing E.M. stumble near the bar bathroom. The notes say he said that E.M. 'slipped, fell back' but that she only 'had three drinks, didn't seem drunk.' Ms. Cunningham asserted that Mr. McLeod left this out when police spoke to him years earlier. 'He denied seeing her fall,' said Ms. Cunningham. 'It was specifically put to him, and he said 'not that I saw.'' Earlier this month, E.M. testified at trial that she may have had 10 or more drinks that night. Mr. McLeod's lawyer, David Humphrey, was among several defence lawyers who questioned her about apparent inconsistencies between the various statements she had provided over the years about the fall. 'I'm going to suggest, Mikey was not there any time you fell,' Mr. Humphrey said. In the pre-trial hearing, Ms. Cunningham also argued that the trial should hear what she regarded as a key piece of evidence against Mr. Dubé. In Mr. Dubé's interview with Ms. Robitialle, he told Ms. Robitaille he 'slapped her (E.M.) on bum once or twice,' according to the interview notes. He also conceded that he 'maybe' touched E.M.'s bum with a golf club that he had been holding in the room that night. Ms. Cunningham told the court last fall: 'This is one of the acts that the Crown says would satisfy the elements of sexual assault.' E.M. has testified that she was scared when players began showing up at the hotel room and she felt she had no choice but to go along with what they were saying. She told the court that at one point, someone mused about putting golf balls and a golf club inside of her. Prosecutors also noted during pre-trial hearings that Mr. Formenton's interviews with Ms. Robitaille contained 'many material differences' in his accounts to authorities. For example Mr. Formenton appears to have given Hockey Canada two interviews four days apart where he gave different versions of the truth. Notes say that on Oct. 14, 2022, Ms. Robitaille asked him whether E.M. was slapped in the hotel room or hit with golf clubs. 'Didn't see anyone slap E.M.,' Mr. Formenton was noted as saying. No one was wielding golf clubs, he said. Mr. Formenton arranged to sit down again with Ms. Robitaille days later, saying that he wanted to correct the record. 'Dubé walked up and tapped her on the butt and walked away,' the notes say he told Ms. Robitaille this time. 'It was a tap but loud enough to hear.' Mr. Formenton said he saw Mr. Dubé hold a golf club and swing it toward E.M. when she was on all fours. 'I did not see contact with EM + club but saw Dubé held golf club in right hand and made putting practice motion and swing towards her butt.' The player said he had been overwhelmed and didn't want to throw Mr. Dubé under the bus, according to the interview notes. He acknowledged that Mr. Dubé had phoned him and asked him not to mention the golf club. When speaking to Ms. Robitaille the players each denied assaulting E.M. But the notes and transcripts from Ms. Robitaille's interviews also include other details not previously known about what the players have said happened that night. For example, Mr. Formenton said he noticed E.M. crying at the end of the night, but it was because she worried she wasn't pretty enough. Ms. Robitaille told Mr. McLeod, 'We're hearing that you were directing players to have sex with' E.M., which he denied. She asked Mr. Dubé whether Mr. McLeod had said 'you next.' Mr. Dubé's response is unclear from the notes. Court has also heard that a day after the alleged assault, Mr. McLeod found E.M. on Instagram, they exchanged numbers, and began texting. In those messages he pressured her to make the police investigation go away. 'You said you here having fun??' he wrote. 'I was ok with going home with you, it was everyone else afterwards that I wasn't expecting,' E.M. wrote back. 'I just felt like I was being made fun of and taken advantage of.' Ms. Robitaille asked Mr. McLeod about this exchange. She asked the player: if what you're saying is true – that E.M. is the one who asked him to invite his teammates to the room – why didn't he correct her in the text message? Why not say: 'it was your idea?' According to the note of the interview, Mr. McLeod told Ms. Robitaille that he was just trying to get it – the police investigation – to stop. He told the Hockey Canada investigator that E.M. hadn't been drunk and she was consenting.
Hamilton Spectator
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
‘I am giving my truth': Defence presses Hockey Canada complainant on inconsistencies with video footage
In a tense fifth day of cross-examination, the woman at the centre of the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial was challenged over apparent contradictions between what she has said happened in a London, Ont., bar and what the jury has seen in surveillance video. The complainant, whose identity is covered by a standard publication ban, alleges she was sexually assaulted by several members of the 2018 Canadian world junior championship team in a room at the Delta Armouries hotel in the early hours of June 19, 2018, when she was 20 years old. The alleged incident happened after the woman met player Michael McLeod at Jack's Bar and agreed to go back to his hotel where they had consensual sex, only for other players to show up afterward. McLeod, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Dillon Dubé, and Cal Foote have pleaded not guilty. The Crown has alleged that McLeod later had intercourse with the complainant a second time in the hotel room's bathroom; that Formenton separately had intercourse with the complainant in the bathroom; that McLeod, Hart, and Dubé obtained oral sex from the woman; and that Foote did the splits over her head and his genitals 'grazed' her face. On Friday, Formenton's lawyer, Daniel Brown, the third lawyer to cross-examine the complainant this week, walked the woman through surveillance footage that he suggested contradicts her narrative about what happened at Jack's that night. The woman has told the jury she got very drunk as McLeod and his friends bought most of her drinks, was separated from her friends, and was made to touch the men's crotches on the dance floor. Alex Formenton, centre, with his lawyers Hilary Dudding, left, and Daniel Brown, right. Now on her sixth day overall of testimony, the complainant sounded frustrated at times with Brown, who told her part of the reason she's been testifying for so long is because she's not answering questions directly. 'I feel this is also my time to stand up for myself when I couldn't that night,' the woman responded. 'So I'd like to respond how I'd like to respond, if that's alright.' Brown replied: 'Well, in fact, it's not alright, you're here to respond to my questions.' At this, Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia put her hands up, asking the complainant, who is testifying via CCTV from a different room at the courthouse, to just answer the questions. Brown also pressed the woman on her alcohol consumption that night — a key issue in a trial that hinges on the question of consent. The woman has said she believes she had one vodka soda, a beer and at least eight shots, mostly Jägerbombs — a shot of Jägermeister dropped in Red Bull energy drink — at the bar, as well as two coolers at home, for a total of 12 drinks. While she's said that McLeod and his friends bought almost all of her drinks at the bar, she can be seen on video purchasing most of what she said she drank, either by herself or with a friend, Brown pointed out. The footage establishes the woman had already had eight of her 12 drinks before she even meets McLeod, Brown said, leading the complainant to say that perhaps she drank even more than she thought. Michael McLeod films a selfie video with the complainant on the dance floor inside Jack's Bar. Once she does meet McLeod, she can be seen buying him a drink at the bar, something Brown noted she never told the police. The woman said she was so drunk she must have forgotten, and countered that just because she forgot to tell the police about buying more drinks on her own doesn't change her story. 'Your truth changes from 2018 to 2022 to 2025,' Brown said to her. She has also said that an older man who was with McLeod's group poured a shot down her throat — but that isn't captured on video either, Brown said. 'I recall that happening,' she said, blaming the angle of the cameras for not capturing it. 'That's lawyer stuff, I don't know what I was supposed to do,' the woman testified Wednesday, explaining why her lawsuit against Hockey Canada 'That's lawyer stuff, I don't know what I was supposed to do,' the woman testified Wednesday, explaining why her lawsuit against Hockey Canada The complainant has maintained she was very drunk at Jack's and back at the hotel room, where she alleges the men placed a bedsheet on the floor and asked her to fondle herself, to perform oral sex on them as she was slapped and spat on, and to have vaginal intercourse. The woman has said she engaged in the sexual activity while adopting a 'porn star persona' as a coping mechanism while in a room surrounded by men she didn't know. At one point, Brown pulled out a prop to suggest the complainant didn't drink as much alcohol as she may have believed: a shot glass he said Jack's used to serve Jägerbombs. The glass takes a half-ounce of alcohol, not the full one ounce in a typical shot, he noted, demonstrating for the jury with water. So maybe you didn't drink as much alcohol as you thought, Brown put to her. 'I still drank the amount that I thought in terms of number of drinks,' she said, 'but maybe not ounces of liquid.' Earlier at trial, the woman testified that once on the dance floor with McLeod and his group, the men were moving her hands to touch their crotch areas. On Friday, Brown noted that the only time she's seen on camera touching one of the players' crotches is when she's dancing with McLeod and no one is moving her hand. And while the complainant had told police the men had separated her from her friends at the bar, Brown pointed out that she seems to be mostly on her own buying more drinks before she meets the players. Facebook Messenger messages entered into evidence Friday show the complainant's friend, who was a co-worker she was still getting to know, messaging her more than once, asking where she was in the bar. At exactly midnight, the friend asks, 'Let me know if you want me to get u from the guy!!' and the complainant responds, 'I'm OK for now.' About 15 minutes later, the friend again messages, saying 'where u go!!!' and also tries calling the complainant. But she doesn't respond. Brown further highlighted that the complainant can be seen talking with a bouncer, whom she said this week was a friend from high school but didn't mention in interviews or statements to the police in either 2018 or 2022. (She first mentioned him two months ago in a letter to police and the Crown after she had reviewed the surveillance footage.) A pair of stills from videos showing the dance floor inside Jack's Bar in London, Ont., on the night of June 18-19, 2018, show the complainant with world junior team members Dillon Dubé, circled left, and Michael McLeod, right. Brown suggested she didn't mention the bouncer because he would have been 'unhelpful' to the complainant's story, in that he might have said she wasn't as intoxicated as she has claimed. The complainant denied this, saying she didn't want to get him involved in a private matter. Brown pressed the complainant on whether she was giving the jury the truth on her memories from the bar, or just guessing. 'No, I am giving my truth and I've said what's true and then you push me for an answer,' she said. 'If I say 'I don't know,' you'll discredit me. If I say something and it's wrong, you'll also try to discredit me.' Later in the morning of June 19, a few hours after the alleged assaults, the complainant's friend from Jack's messaged her asking if she had made it home OK. She said she did, and apologized for losing her friends. The friend says, 'You were having a blast with those guys,' to which the complainant responds: 'Haha ya they were funny,' including a face with tears of joy emoji. The complainant testified that she was full of shame and embarrassment about what she said happened in the hotel room, and wasn't about to open up to someone she still didn't know very well. 'Shame and embarrassment for the choices you made,' Brown said, as court began to wrap up for the day. 'No, I'd like to finish,' the complainant interjected in a firm voice. 'I made the choice to dance with them and drink at the bar. I did not make the choice to have them do what they did back at the hotel.' Cross-examination of the complainant continues Monday for a sixth day.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
A Kansas sheriff's sweet, clumsy invite to deliver drunk teens home
The Wabaunsee County Sheriff's Office posted this photo after busting teenagers who were caught drinking. In a masterpiece of social media, Sheriff Eric Kirsch invited teens to call law enforcement if they are "drunk as hell" and need a ride home. (Wabaunsee County Sheriff's Office) Hey teenagers: do you have a cool adult who you trust to drive you home after you get drunk? If not, the Wabaunsee County Sheriff's Office wants to be that person. That's the message from a post that the Kansas sheriff posted Wednesday to Instagram and Facebook. Using a few hundred words (and a handful of emojis), Sheriff Eric Kirsch invited teens to call law enforcement if they need a sober driver: 'SO….in WABAUNSEE COUNTY KANSAS if you're drunk as hell & under 21 & need to get home safe, you can call us & we'll get you home safe.' For the 'young adults' who accepted the offer, he promised not to cite them with a minor in possession of alcohol. The post is a masterpiece of social media, attracting more than 1 million views in the first few hours. Kirsch hopes teens think, 'Wait a minute guys, let's call the Sheriff's Office' after a night of Jägerbombs and Bongzillas. In the process, the message charmingly zigzags all over the place. Kirsch morbidly opens with the military and law enforcement resumes of the department's officers, complete with all caps at all the wrong moments, by listing 'HORRIFIC crimes like homicides,' 'a serial killer' and 'decades in and out of combat zones.' One jarring sentence lists, 'child molestation & online child crimes investigations, busted up PEDOPHILE NETWORKS & other sinister human trafficking syndicates.' The perfect words to convince a tipsy teenager to stagger into a police cruiser? Nope. After that wobbly start, Kirsch gets down to business by offering teenagers a ride home 'if you're drunk as hell.' I think most college-town Uber drivers would tell you the clean-up risk of wasted first-time drinkers. Teenagers often volunteer the alcohol they just drank right back to the world. Puke clean up is a startling new job responsibility that the sheriff is possibly assigning his deputies. Here's hoping Wabaunsee County has invested in rubber floor mats. This is a good moment to inspect the photo that accompanied the words. The top of the image has the badge of the department against the black Kansas sky. At the center, a law enforcement officer smiles — a flashlight, handgun and body camera strapped to his vest. His thumbs-up gesture is mimicked, with varying levels of enthusiasm, by a few of the teens who flank him. Their faces appear to be lit by the strobing lights of a sheriff's cruiser. The teenagers are perfectly Midwest. Their hoodies advertise Coors beer and the Bank of the Flint Hills, brands that likely don't appreciate these product placements alongside teen drinking, thank you very much. The boys mostly wear baseball caps, while one girl stands uneasily near the middle, nervously hinging her OnCloud sneaker in the gravel. At the center of the photo is the contraband: plastic bags from WalMart and Dollar General, filled with empty cans of Mike's Hard Lemonade and other alcohol. The sheriff reveals that they had also been drinking beers and Boone's Farm Wine, the archetypal teen garbage swill. He writes: 'HORRIBLE BOONES FARM WINE (that's basically engine degreaser dudes, you should be ashamed of yourselves )'. It's a standard and cringey aside that signals: 'You can trust me! I've been a young drinker before.' (Only slightly more likely to appeal to 2025 teens? The sheriff's office replied to its own post with a song from 2007, when many of them had yet to be born.) If these words aren't convincing teens, Kirsch next tries compassion, and it's a heavy, heartfelt dose: 'I'm tired of carrying people off the roadway in the aftermath of entirely avoidable tragedy.' There's a bit of patriotism swirled in as Kirsch calls teens 'the future leaders of this Great Nation & we NEED AND WANT you ALL to succeed.' For anyone who has coached, taught or mentored young people, this post presents a familiar conundrum: In order to keep teenagers safe, we need them to trust us adults. Does that trust come through showing them expertise by listing law enforcement accomplishments? Does that trust come through showing them compassion by reminding them, as Kirsch write, that, 'We're here for you dudes, even if you're not quite there for yourself yet '? Does that trust come through the legal forgiveness of a sheriff overlooking the misdemeanor crime of a drunk teenager? Kirsch admits that there is no perfect formula to eliminate teen drinking. He writes: 'People are going to party, prohibition doesn't work yet providing options does. We provide this option so all lives on the road may benefit.' Of course, prohibition of alcohol — whether for teens or an entire country — doesn't work. But that distracts from how these free rides gently sanction teen drinking. The sober rides are a slight but very public enabling. However, Kirsch's stated goal is to create safe roadways that are free of drunk teenage drivers. If that is his mission, this impromptu policy announced on social media works as a step in that direction. The subtle permission for teen drinkers simply might be a necessary cost. When I was a high school teacher, my student journalists interviewed a child psychologist about teen drinking. They asked, 'If parents drink with their teenagers in controlled ways during high school, is that a good way to minimize alcohol abuse later in life?' The psychologist was flummoxed by the question. No, she said, drinking early in life is a leading indicator of later alcohol abuse, so any implicit approval for it is consequential, especially during teenage years. The comment section on Facebook voices this exact worry: 'Thanks for encouraging underage drinking…. No more Ubers the wabunsee (sic) sheriff's office will do it free of charge and listen to your drunken dreams and goals yay good job guys ' Is the sheriff smartly trading tipsy teen drivers for teens who feel liberated to be 'drunk as hell'? Another anecdote from my high school teaching days provides my personal answer. Each October I supervised the fall dance with about 700 students celebrating in the school gymnasium. A few hours into the dance, students literally leaned against the doors, eager to start partying in basements with their own bottles of Boone's Farm. After I released the students and after the chaperones left, I sat in the bleachers of the gymnasium surrounded by drooping streamers and deflated balloons. The DJ packed his speakers into the back of his van. Through the open doors, traffic whirred past. That's when I would hear the sirens. I bowed my head. I hoped the police car wasn't responding to the accident of a drunk student driver. I sometimes prayed in those moments to keep all of those young people safe. The ones I worried about the most had driven themselves to the dance, packing into sedans with corsages on their wrists and beers in their bellies. 'Please keep them safe,' I thought. The ones I worried about less? Students who wobbled onto party buses with drivers to deliver them home. Or students who arranged rides with parents. If they insisted on drinking, at least they would be safe. So, I hear you, Sheriff Kirsch. In the realm of teen drinking, there is no silver bullet (Well, maybe one). There is only ambiguity and a hope for safety. Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
