They were men, not boys, complainant tells hockey players' sex assault trial

A woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by five former world junior hockey players told their trial Tuesday they were men, not boys, at the time of the alleged incident.

The complainant, who was 20 at the time, has referred to the players and their other teammates as men throughout her testimony, which began more than a week ago.

In cross-examination Tuesday, defence lawyer Julianna Greenspan said the woman had called them boys in a 2018 statement to police, and suggested she purposely used a different word during trial.

“The reason why you have so carefully changed your language is because you have come into this trial with a clear agenda, isn’t that right?” the lawyer suggested.

The woman denied having an agenda and said that regardless of how she previously spoke, at 18 and 19 years old, "they were men."

At least two of the defence lawyers have referred to the accused as boys over the course of the proceedings.  

Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

Prosecutors allege that McLeod, Hart and Dube obtained oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube slapped her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.

Foote allegedly did the splits over her face and "grazed" his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant without her consent inside the bathroom. 

The events at the heart of the case took place in June 2018 as several members of Canada's 2018 world junior hockey team were in London for a gala marking their championship win.

Several of the team's members went out to a downtown bar after the gala, court has heard. Formenton was not one of them because he was 18 and too young to get in.

The complainant, meanwhile, was at the bar with co-workers, court heard. She'd had two coolers at home beforehand and drank at least eight shots — most of them Jager bombs — as well as a vodka soda and a beer, she testified. 

She told the court that she bought the first two shots immediately after arriving, but that a group of men she learned were hockey players bought most of her drinks after that. However, security video played during cross-examination last week showed she bought most of what she consumed that night.

The woman left the bar with McLeod to go to the hotel where he and his teammates were staying, court heard. They had sex, an encounter that is not part of the trial, court heard.

Soon after, men started coming into the room, the woman testified. She was naked, drunk, scared and unsure of how to handle the situation, she said. She felt herself go on "autopilot" as she engaged in sexual acts she believed the men wanted from her, she said.

Defence lawyers have offered a drastically different narrative over more than a week of cross-examination, suggesting the woman was the one who asked McLeod to call his friends into the room then "egged on" the players to engage in sexual acts with her.

The woman at times asked the group if anyone would have sex with her, they suggested. The woman has maintained that she has no memory of saying those things, but that if she did, it would be a sign that she was intoxicated and out of her mind.

Her level of intoxication, her interactions with the players and her conversations with others in the days that followed the encounter were recurring themes in the cross-examination.

The defence has suggested the woman was not as drunk as she made herself out to be, pointing to security footage from Jack's bar and the Delta hotel where she is seen walking unassisted in high heels. While she may have appeared steady in the videos, that wasn't how she felt inside, the woman has said, adding she was used to walking in heels when going out.

Defence lawyers have suggested the woman sought the attention of the players in the room and grew frustrated when they didn't give it to her. She felt scorned when McLeod and Formenton, who shared the hotel room, asked her to leave at the end of the night because they wanted to rest before a golf tournament, the defence suggested. 

The woman denied wanting to be the centre of attention, and said she could hear the men talking about what they wanted her to do. The other men could have gone to their own rooms if they'd simply wanted to chat with each other, she added. 

And while she did feel disrespected by McLeod and Formenton's behaviour at the end, she said, she felt disrespected by everything that happened in the room before that as well.

On Monday, the woman was also asked why she didn't immediately tell her best friend that she believed she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman had testified that she called her best friend while sobbing in the hotel lobby but couldn't recall the details of the conversation. In text messages later that day, she didn't mention an alleged sexual assault. She told her friend days later that she had gone to the police station and hospital in relation with the events of that night, court heard.

The woman testified that she was still processing what had happened at the time and wasn't talking about it with anyone except her mother at first.

Cross-examination wrapped Tuesday and prosecutors will have the opportunity Wednesday to ask the complainant questions related to the issues raised in that process. The woman has been testifying via CCTV since May 2. 

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nicole Osborne