Hockey Canada trial: Jurors cautioned about woman's sex abuse lawsuit
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Hockey Canada “expressly denied liability” on behalf of itself and eight unnamed junior hockey players when it quickly settled a lawsuit with a woman claiming she was sexually abused in a London hotel room.
Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia told that fact to the jury in the criminal trial of five former members of the 2018 Canada world junior championship squad who all have pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting the woman. Carroccia’s also told jurors on Thursday two paragraphs from the civil statement of claim could not be used as “proof of wrongdoing.”
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In a surprising twist at the end of the court day on Wednesday, it was revealed the eight “John Does” named as defendants in the civil suit, some of whom are now on trial, were never told they were being sued for $3.55-million along with Hockey Canada and the Canadian Hockey League in April 2022, nor were they told the suit was settled a month later.
Michael McLeod, 27, Carter Hart, 26, Alex Formenton, 25, Cal Foote, 26, and Dillon Dube, 26, all of whom had National Hockey League careers, each have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. McLeod pleaded not guilty to a second sexual assault count for being a party to the offence.
They are charged in connection with events inside a Delta Armouries hotel room on June 19, 2018, where the men were staying for a Hockey Canada gala in London and a golf tournament.
The 27-year-old woman, whose identity is protected by court order, was 20 at the time and met the team at Jack’s Bar on Richmond Row, then returned to the hotel to have consensual sex with McLeod. She has testified the men were summoned to the room by McLeod and she was forced into sex acts with them. She also has insisted she was drunk and has large memory gaps.
But an alternative narrative has emerged during this week’s intense cross-examination of the complainant, specifically on Thursday when Hart’s defence lawyer Megan Savard kept chipping away at the woman’s version of events.
The defence has suggested the woman was the aggressor and asked McLeod to call players to the room because she wanted “a wild time.” Once assembled, she was naked and on a bedsheet spread on the floor and was asking the men to have sex with her.
The jury has heard the men found out about the settled lawsuit through media reports. It was filed three years after the initial London police investigation found insufficient grounds to lay charges.
It meant none of the men were able to defend the allegations that included sexual abuse, assault, conspiracy and false imprisonment.
“Hockey Canada, on its own behalf and on behalf of the defendants, did not commit any liability and expressly denied liability,” Carroccia said. “The claim was settled by Hockey Canada without the knowledge or consent of the John Doe defendants.”
While their real names were not listed in the statement of claim, all eight men were identified in a July 2022 statement to Hockey Canada signed by the woman that included some of the men on trial and player Jonah Gadjovich, who the jury heard was included in the civil suit despite having no involvement in the case, but was someone the woman recognized from photos taken at a Richmond Row bar.
The amount of the settlement is not relevant to the trial, the judge said, and “you cannot use the allegations contained in the paragraphs in the statement of claim read in the trial as proof of any wrongdoing of the accused in this trial.”
Those paragraphs were read by the woman at the request of Savard and pointed to her allegations she went back to the hotel with John Doe #1, engaged in sexual acts and then John Doe #1 invited the remainder of the John Doe defendants into the room without the knowledge and consent of the plaintiff.
“Over the next several hours, the John Doe defendants engaged in some or all of the following acts which collectively constituted sexual abuse of the plaintiff,” she read.
The woman said she was not the person who “leaked” the document to the media and it was her understanding the case would be “private, I would be done with it and I could move on.”
Savard asked her questions about her assertion that, at various points of the night with the men, she was crying and the hockey players noticed.
The woman said she recalled someone saying “Oh, she’s crying, Don’t let her go.” The woman said she was either naked and heading to the bathroom or was coming out of the bathroom dressed when she heard that comment.
She said she was approached during those moments “to not really let me go in that state.”
But Savard said “don’t let her go” doesn’t appear in any of the three police statements the woman made in 2018 and wasn’t suggested to anyone in the last seven years until the woman’s testimony this week.
“I guess the first time I’ve ever said it maybe out loud was on Monday… I know it came out that way on Monday, but I had already known that was said, and that’s why I had that feeling,” the woman said adding she didn’t think she was ever specifically asked what words were used, even in 2018.
“I don’t think it was something that I thought of when I was in the room giving that statement. I was only 20 and I didn’t really want to talk about it,” she said, adding it was very difficult to describe what had happened to her during her first statement to the police in June 2018.
Savard noted the woman was halfway through a university degree when she first spoke to the police.
The woman bickered with Savard over the wording of her questions, and would focus on what she said now, not what she said seven years ago.
“Ma’am, I appreciate you are trying very hard to advocate for your positions, but what I really need you to do is focus on whether or not I am correctly reading the parts of the transcript and whether they are true,” Savard said.
The woman said she wasn’t arguing, but insisted she cried in front of the men in the bedroom while naked in front of them, not just in the bathroom.
“So, there’s no way these seven or eight guys wouldn’t have noticed that?” Savard said.
“Correct. I know they knew I was crying,” the woman said. “Since there was so many of them, maybe not every single one was paying attention, but there were a few who did notice and did try to not want me to leave when they saw me crying.“
The woman agreed that, each time she went into the bathroom, dressed and was convinced to not leave, she would take her own clothes off.
“I feel like I was on autopilot and just discouraged that ‘I guess I’m not leaving and I guess I’ll just get undressed again,'” she said.
Savard said while she may say she was on autopilot, the men “didn’t apply force” to make her stay.
“They didn’t, but again, they had already convinced me to stay and I didn’t know what else to do. I was drunk. That was all I could figure out to do,” the woman said.
Savard suggested the woman “invented this story of the defendants saying to each other ‘Don’t let her go, she’s crying,’ because you want to make it just a little more likely that the jury will accept a crime happened.”
“No,” the woman said. “I’m saying my truth, my story and how I recall it going. I’m not trying to make it worse than it was,” the woman said.
She also said she was “disappointed” when the original police investigation in 2018 ended without charges “but that was out of my hands. I wasn’t gong to get hung up on something I had no control over.”
Savard suggested “because that didn’t work out for you, so now you’re coming up with a version that is a bit worse, to see if it sticks this time.”
“No, I have no reason to come up with the worst version of it. It remains the same,” the woman said.
Formenton’s defence lawyer Daniel Brown began his cross-examination of the woman and asked why the woman didn’t participate in Hockey Canada’s original investigation in 2018.
“I just recall wanting to do the police investigation. I didn’t see the purpose of the Hockey Canada investigation at the time and I was already going through a lot,” she said.
The woman provided a written statement to Hockey Canada, which she said was written by her lawyers and she signed, in July 2022, in which she said she was too drunk to consent and the men should have known that. She had an interview with investigator Danielle Robitaille in October 2022.
She agreed alcohol lowers her inhibitions and she would drink to feel more comfortable in social situations. She also agreed she was familiar with Jack’s Bar and often went on weekends and for their cheap drink nights.
Brown took her to passages in one of her statements that said the woman blamed herself for years after the events but no longer. The woman said that wasn’t totally true and she still carries some blame.
“Would you agree with me that it’s much easier to deny your deliberate choices than it is to acknowledge the shame, guilt and embarrassment that you felt about those choices?” Brown asked.
“I’m not sure if I agree with you,” the woman said. “I have a lot of blame on myself, but I do believe other people should be held accountable for their actions that night… I’m not really sure.”
The trial continues Friday.
jsims@postmedia.com
See below for coverage from the London courthouse on Thursday as the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial continues.
