Left to right, Alex Formenton, Cal Foote, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube and Carter Hart.Nicole Osborne/The Canadian Press
Defence lawyers representing the five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel after a Hockey Canada gala rested their case in a London, Ont., courtroom Monday morning.
The trial now moves into its final stages with closing submissions, which are scheduled to begin next Monday. Each of the five defence teams will make their final arguments first, followed by the Crown – a process that is expected to last three days.
On Monday, defence lawyer Daniel Brown, who is representing accused player Alex Formenton, told the court that his client would not be testifying, which is the right of any accused person.
He noted that Mr. Formenton’s 2018 interview with London police is already on the court record. It was the same explanation given by lawyers representing Michael McLeod, when they announced he would not be testifying last week. Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote also declined to take to the witness box on Monday.
Of the five accused players, only Carter Hart – who had been a goalie with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers when he was charged in 2024 – testified in his own defence, which opened him to cross-examination by Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham. Mr. Hart’s testimony last week was the prosecution’s only chance to directly question one of the accused players about the events that are alleged to have occurred inside Room 209 at the Delta Armouries hotel on June 19, 2018.
Mr. McLeod, Mr. Hart, Mr. Formenton, Mr. Dubé and Mr. Foote have each been charged with sexually assaulting a woman known publicly as E.M., whose identity is protected by a publication ban. Mr. McLeod faces a second charge of being a party to sexual assault. The men have pleaded not guilty.
What the jury didn’t hear at the Hockey Canada sex-assault trial
Before the defence rested its case on Monday, Mr. Brown called Detective Lyndsey Ryan as a witness. Det. Ryan led the London Police Service’s second investigation into the alleged group attack at the Delta Armouries. The first was run by now-retired officer Stephen Newton, who closed the case without charges in February, 2019.
In the witness box, Det. Ryan told the court that in July, 2022, when she was working in the London police’s sexual-assault and child-abuse section, she was assigned to review the 2018 investigation. At the time, the case was dominating the news cycle. TSN had broken the story that E.M. had filed a lawsuit against Hockey Canada and unnamed members of the 2018 world junior team, which the sport’s body settled without informing the players.
Court heard that one of the first things Det. Ryan did was go to E.M.’s home on July 20, 2022, to inform her that the investigation was being looked at again.
“She was actually quite upset. I felt pretty bad, because it felt like – I got the sense that I was opening up some wounds that she was trying to close,” Det. Ryan testified.
Det. Ryan told the court she spoke with E.M. multiple times, although she never formally interviewed her. ”We thought that we had everything we needed from her and a reinterview would have been retraumatizing,“ Det. Ryan said.
Under questioning from one of Mr. Hart’s lawyers, Riaz Sayani, Det. Ryan also testified that she did not reach out to the co-workers with whom E.M. had gone out on the night in question, which could have shed light on E.M.’s level of intoxication. (Court has heard that E.M. and her co-workers went out on June 18, 2018, to a London bar called Jack’s, where she met some of the players.)
Det. Ryan said that, given the intense public interest in the case in the summer of 2022, she was balancing the potential benefits of interviewing the co-workers with a desire to protect E.M.’s privacy, because the co-workers were not aware that E.M. was the woman at the centre of the Hockey Canada scandal.
At one point in court on Monday, when the officer was discussing the emotional toll of the second investigation on E.M., there was an audible gasp from the viewing gallery where relatives and friends of the accused players were seated.
The line of questioning Mr. Sayani took with Det. Ryan echoed some of the Crown’s examination of Mr. Newton, which highlighted apparent gaps in the initial police investigation.
Mr. Sayani also questioned the officer about discrepancies between a statement E.M. gave to police in 2018 and a statement that her lawyer submitted to Hockey Canada in 2022.
During her testimony, E.M. testified that the 2022 statement had been drafted by her lawyer – not her – which has been a point of contention for the defence as the statement included some inconsistencies and chronological errors.
On Monday, the officer said that what she found notable between the two statements is that in 2018, E.M. appeared to be full of self-blame – a reaction she called “quite normal” for victims of sexual violence – but that by 2022, the officer felt as though E.M. had “processed” what had happened.
In the officer’s assessment, E.M. had had four years to realize she was not to blame and that her acquiescence inside Room 209 did not equal consent.
In early 2024, about a year and a half after the officer reopened the investigation, London police charged the five former world junior players.
The trial, which has been plagued with disruptions – including a mistrial and two dismissed juries – has run for about six weeks. In mid-May, Justice Maria Carroccia accepted a proposal from the defence to switch to a judge-alone trial.
It was a change that the Crown reluctantly accepted in order to prevent a second mistrial; however, Ms. Cunningham expressed concern it would prejudice the prosecution’s case as much of their evidence had already been called – and called in a way that was designed for a jury, not a judge.
Excerpts from a video interview Michael McLeod gave to London police on Nov. 17, 2018.
The Globe and Mail