Hockey players had group chat to discuss response to sex assault allegations: witness

An Ontario court is hearing that members of Canada's 2018 world junior hockey team formed a group chat to discuss how to respond to a Hockey Canada investigation into allegations of sexual assault a week after an encounter with a woman in a London, Ont., hotel room.

Tyler Steenbergen, who was on the team and provided the chat to police, says two of the players — Dillon Dube and Cal Foote — also called him to ask that he not tell investigators about what they had done because they wanted to explain it themselves.

Steenbergen testified he saw Dube slap the woman's butt that night after she gave another player, Carter Hart, oral sex. He said he also saw Foote do the splits, but he couldn't see clearly because there were people in the way.

Dube, Foote, Hart and their then-teammates Michael McLeod and Alex Formenton have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in connection with an encounter that took place in the early hours of June 19, 2018. 

McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

Court has heard that several players who were not charged were in the hotel room and the group chat. Steenbergen has said that he, Jake Bean, Drake Batherson, Maxime Comtois, Brett Howden and Sam Steel were present for at least a portion of the events.

The complainant, who spent nine days on the stand via CCTV, has said she was naked and drunk when men started coming into the room where she'd just had sex with McLeod — an encounter that's not part of the trial.

She said while no one physically forced her to engage in sexual acts, she was scared and felt she had no choice but to go along with what the men in the room wanted her to do.

The defence, meanwhile, has suggested the woman asked McLeod to invite his friends over and then urged the men to have sex with her.

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nicole Osborne