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Time of India
3 days ago
- Sport
- Time of India
Hockey Canada sexual assault trial: Judge to rule on drunken night that shattered national trust
Justice Maria Carroccia is set to deliver the verdict on July 24 in the sexual assault trial (Image via The Canadian Press) A month after the dramatic closing arguments were delivered in one of the most explosive trials in Canadian sports history, the fate of five former Team Canada players now rests in the hands of Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia. The case stems from a 2018 incident involving multiple hockey players and a 20-year-old woman in a London, Ontario hotel room — an event that has since ignited national debate over consent, trauma, and institutional accountability. The controversial trial involving five former junior hockey players nears its conclusion The five accused — Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, Alex Formenton, and Cal Foote — have all pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault. McLeod faces an additional charge for being a party to the offense. In a powerful closing statement last month, Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham rejected defense arguments that framed the woman as an instigator. 'It's not only a myth,' Cunningham said, 'but I submit it is not what happened here on the evidence.' The Crown emphasized that drinking, flirting, or dancing should not be interpreted as signs of sexual availability — a point at the heart of this case. Cunningham added, 'At no time did anyone on any of the evidence here attempt to engage in a sincere conversation with (the woman) about what she truly wanted to happen.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Complete protection with iPru All-in-one Term Plan ICICI Pru Life Insurance Plan Get Quote Undo That, she argued, failed the legal test for consent, particularly considering the woman was intoxicated and in a room with multiple men she did not know. Defense argues the woman was a willing participant, questions trauma timeline In stark contrast, the defense teams maintained the woman was a consenting adult, pointing to her behavior and the video evidence. 'That is consistent with her not being surprised men were in the room and consistent with her wanting to have sex with them,' McLeod's lawyer David Humphrey argued. Further challenging the prosecution's case, Carter Hart's lawyer Riaz Sayani questioned the credibility of delayed trauma, noting that the woman initially did not describe fear or trauma in 2018, only doing so in 2022. Sayani claimed this undermined the Crown's psychological narrative. Also Read: Shocking Hockey Canada sexual assault trial ends as judge's verdict on disgraced NHL stars looms on July 24 Now, with the verdict expected on July 24, the hockey world and public alike await the outcome of a case that may forever reshape the intersection of sports culture, consent, and legal responsibility in Canada.
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Globe and Mail
Consent videos not viable as evidence in court, experts say after Hockey Canada trial
'You're okay with this?' a male voice off-camera asks the woman, filmed from the neck up. 'I'm okay with this,' she replies in the six-second video, shot around 3 a.m. on June 19, 2018. An hour later, a second video shows the woman in a hotel room, shielding herself with a towel. 'Are you recording me?' she asks. 'Okay, good. It was all consensual.' The two videos were submitted as evidence in the trial of five former Canadian world junior hockey players charged with sexually assaulting the woman in the clips, who is known publicly as E.M. because her identity is protected by a publication ban. All five players have pleaded not guilty. E.M. testified that she didn't remember either video being shot, but that she felt intimidated and would have said what the players were coaxing her to say. A Crown attorney in the case argued that the players would have recorded the videos only if they thought there was a possibility that E.M. could later say the sexual interactions weren't consensual. Carter Hart, one of the accused players, pushed back against this suggestion during cross-examination, saying that consent videos are common among professional athletes. Consent videos are recordings usually taken before, during or after a sexual interaction as a means of documenting consent to pre-empt false accusations. Under Canadian law, these videos don't hold up as proof of consent, which needs to be continuing, voluntary and can be revoked at any time. Send us your questions about the Hockey Canada trial 'Because of the strong protections we have courtesy of the Supreme Court around sexual encounters, you're not required to say, 'No, no, stop,'' says Daphne Gilbert, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. 'So having on video a person who's seemingly participating in a sexual activity and not protesting, screaming, pushing the person off doesn't indicate consent,' she says. 'That's not enough to be consent in law.' Yet since the early 2000s, conversations around the necessity of consent videos and other forms of 'consent contracts' have circulated in online spaces, many of which are dominated by young men. Later, the videos gained wider traction as a misguided takeaway from the #MeToo movement. Despite the fact that false sexual-assault allegations are the minority, pick-up artists, dating coaches and men's rights influencers have touted the videos as 'rape insurance' to protect young men. Opinion: To really change the culture around sexual violence, consent can't be taught as a technicality The concept of consent contracts first emerged in the early 2000s, in the aftermath of the felony sexual-assault charges against Kobe Bryant. Enterprising lawyers started drafting 'pre-sex agreement forms' marketed toward professional athletes who feared they could face similar accusations. Mr. Bryant and the plaintiff settled in a civil suit and the criminal charges were later dropped, but the case left a legacy of documenting consent among athletes. Around the same time, comedian Dave Chappelle riffed on the concept, releasing a sketch in which he asks a prospective partner, played by Rashida Jones, to sign a lengthy contract outlining exactly which sexual activities are approved. A decade later, when the Obama administration provided guidance to colleges on preventing and responding to sexual violence, which included introducing policies around affirmative consent, obtaining consent over video or text became a serious option. 'It was considered threatening enough to a lot of misogynists that the idea of the consent video really took off,' says Nicole Bedera, an American sociologist who researches sexual violence. 'The way people talked about it was 'rape insurance,' now I can't possibly be accused of sexual assault because I have this get-out-of-jail-free card, literally.' ' Ms. Bedera says the concept spread on the Reddit community r/theredpill, one of the original building blocks of the manosphere, the network of blogs, podcasts and influencers promoting misogynist beliefs. On other subreddits about dating and relationships, users suggested that men establish a digital footprint, such as consent videos or text messages with a partner. Canadian YouTuber Jack Densmore, who posted videos from university parties and coached men on how to pick up women, preached that obtaining a consent video was a critical step in hook-ups. Last month, Mr. Densmore was sentenced to three years in prison for sexually assaulting a McMaster University student in 2020. Evidence included a video taken by Mr. Densmore during the assault without the woman's consent, which he said proved the interaction was consensual. 'The question that always follows these videos is 'Why did you feel the need to make one? Why would you make a video if everything's going to go the way you describe?'' says Ms. Bedera. In the Hockey Canada case, lawyers representing the hockey players initially sent the videos to The Globe before the trial began, arguing that the footage showed the sexual contact was consensual and that E.M. was not fearful, intimidated or intoxicated as she claimed. The Crown argued in the trial that the videos were evidence that the players were unsure if the interactions were fully consensual. 'I think the people who take these videos don't understand what consent truly means in sexual activity,' said Ms. Gilbert, the law professor. 'They sort of feel like they've got themselves covered, but in law there's no significance to those videos.' Jonathan Reed, the director of programs at Next Gen Men, a non-profit focused on teaching young men about healthy masculinity, says the teenagers he works with often feel fearful when it comes to navigating intimacy. 'There's an increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence. There's also this fear about cancel culture and the real consequences of 'getting it wrong,' ' says Mr. Reed. 'They know they're not supposed to be toxic, but they also know they're expected to be stereotypically masculine if they're going to be taken seriously by the girls that they're interested in.' In the wake of #MeToo, the language around consent has become more mainstream, but young men are still struggling to grasp how to initiate these conversations. To find support or validation, young men are increasingly turning to YouTube, podcasts and dating-coach influencers for advice. Those online spaces, however, can push harmful views. Last year, researchers at Dublin City University found that male users are bombarded with anti-feminist and male-supremacist content on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, whether or not they sought out that content. 'That online content around sexuality … it's not necessarily talking about healthy consensual relationships," said Stafford Perry of the Calgary-based group WiseGuyz, which provides a space for young men to have conversations about sex and relationships. 'If young men are turning to the internet, whether that's pornography or Instagram, it's not necessarily about supporting them to have healthy relationships,' he says. YouTubers have dissected and offered commentary on the trial, some of which cast doubt on E.M.'s testimony, and debate the prevalence of false accusations. In the programs he facilitates with young men, Mr. Reed instead offers this advice. 'If you're feeling so unpracticed or intoxicated that you might get it wrong, or you have such a lack of trust within your relationship with that person that you can't be sure how things will go the next day after you've been sexually intimate, then rather than taking a video, you should slow down and work towards reciprocal trust.'
BBC News
7 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Judge hears closing arguments in hockey sexual assault trial
Closing arguments have concluded in the trial of five Canadian ice hockey players accused of sexually assaulting a woman, with both sides offering competing stories on what had unfolded on the evening of the alleged accused men, all former players for Canada's world junior hockey team, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their fate now rests with a judge. Their lawyers argued that the woman consented to engaging in sexual acts with the players at a hotel room in London, Ontario, in 2018, while attending a hockey woman testified that she had consensual sex with one player that night, but did not agree to sexual acts with the others who had entered the hotel room. The accused are Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton and Carter Hart. All were professional players with the National Hockey League (NHL) when the assault allegations woman is known as EM due to a publication ban on her name. She was 20 years old at the time of the testified that she had met Mr McLeod at a bar in June 2018, where he and other players were celebrating after the gala. In her testimony, she told the court that she had agreed to go to Mr McLeod's hotel room and they had consensual lawyer Meaghan Cunningham argued that the woman was later put in a "highly stressful and unpredictable" situation after Mr McLeod invited other players by text message to the room for a "three-way". She feared for her safety, the lawyer said, and felt pressured to perform sexual acts to protect herself, including having sex with one player and oral sex with three others. Over days of testimony, EM said that she went on "auto-pilot" mode as the men demanded sex acts from Cunningham referenced a video shot by Mr McLeod at the end of the night of the woman, where he can be heard asking her "You're OK with this, though, right?" and she responds: "I'm OK with this."She argued that the way the question is framed suggests EM had not agreed to what had just transpired. "I want to ask Your Honour to think carefully about those words and what they tell us about what was happening at that point in time," Ms Cunningham told Justice Maria lawyers told the court a different story, focusing on her credibility and reliability as a witness. They argued it was EM who was the instigator and demanded sex acts from the men in the room. Defence lawyers also argued her actions that night made them believe she was consenting and zeroed in on one part of her testimony, where she said she had adopted a "porn star persona" as a coping mechanism during the incident. They said that the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman did not consent."This alone warrants an acquittal against all of these defendants," said lawyer Lisa Carnelos, who represented Mr Dubé.The closing arguments mark the end of the month-and-a-half long trial, which featured a declaration of a mistrial early on and the dismissal of the jury mid-way verdict will be decided by Justice Carroccia alone. It is scheduled to be delivered on 24 July.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Legal decision for the ‘Hockey Canada 5' won't come for weeks, but judgment can be rendered
LONDON, Ont. — As the highly publicized Hockey Canada sexual assault trial neared its end, defense attorney Megan Savard sought to dismiss a stereotype that she said unfairly hindered the accused. 'It is this insidious idea that hockey players, by virtue of the fact that they play closely together on a team in professional sports, naturally protect their own,' Savard said during her closing statement. 'Circle the wagon — form a perjury phalanx, so to speak.' Advertisement Specifically, Savard was referring to the prosecution's allegation that her client, Carter Hart, had lied on the stand about what he could and could not recall about the night in London seven years ago that brought him and four of his former Canadian World Junior teammates back to this Southwestern Ontario city to face charges of sexual assault. Hart was the only one of the accused to testify. The former Philadelphia Flyers goalie was poised, succinct and confident, unabashedly admitting that he was excited by the idea of having group sex with teammates when he read a text from Michael McLeod to a team group chat inviting them to room 209 at the Delta Armouries hotel for a 'three-way.' That hotel — which rises from the castle-like remnants of a defunct military headquarters — is visible from the 14th floor windows of the Ontario Court of Justice, where the events of a June night in 2018 have played on repeat for the past two months. Few details about that hot, hazy evening are fully remembered by the World Junior champions who were in that hotel room, beyond a shared recollection: The players were shocked and embarrassed by the sexual aggressor — a woman hungry for group sex, begging for it even. They were taunted and mocked when they wouldn't take her up on the offer. They responded with discomfort and apprehension to the orgiastic advances of the naked 20-year-old woman they surrounded. That woman — known as E.M. because of a publication ban protecting her identity — is the only person who counters those claims, from the language described to her consent to the acts committed. Hart, McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote sat in that courtroom because of what she said happened in that hotel room: that she was coerced into nonconsensual sex, smacked, spat on, humiliated and degraded over several hours. Advertisement Despite the supposed embarrassment — 'shocked and stunned,' as McLeod told a police investigator — four of them admitted they willingly engaged in sexual activity with the woman. Three of them received oral sex with many of their teammates in the room looking on. One of them said he had vaginal intercourse with her in the bathroom because he was too bashful for a public display. Another did the splits over her as she laid on a sheet between the two hotel beds. Now that the trial is over, a decision from Justice Maria Carroccia as to whether guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt is expected late next month. Regardless of that outcome, the highly publicized trial has become a touchstone for perspectives on sexual assault, misogyny and consent. The 'she said, they said' nature of evidence has also dragged the insular and protective culture of hockey into an uncomfortable spotlight. 'People tend to remember memorable moments,' Savard said this week, as she defended her client's testimony — which directly conflicted with E.M.'s claims of what happened. Hart recalled only the details that he said stayed with him through seven long years. Those memories, inarguably, worked to his benefit and that of his former teammates. During her testimony and in seven withering days of cross-examination, E.M. recalled memorable things — like being goaded into sexual acts while surrounded by men she didn't know, being spit on and slapped painfully on the buttocks, and being encouraged to insert golf balls and golf clubs into her vagina. But Hart's account of receiving oral sex from E.M. was an act of consensual negotiation, Savard later said, after turning down the vaginal sex he said she asked for. (Though, the Crown countered, he made no mention of any negotiations on E.M.'s end, or any discussion of her boundaries.) Advertisement He did not see team captain Dubé slap E.M.'s buttocks, as Dubé is accused of doing. But he was right next to Foote as he straddled E.M. — jokingly and fully clothed, he said — as he did a half splits above her. Similarly, the Crown's own witness, Tyler Steenbergen could recall only vague details about what occurred, though he sat feet away from the sexual acts that took place in that room. Steenbergen is not accused of wrongdoing, but did face scrutiny over his hazy recollection from skeptical Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham. Likewise, Brett Howden, another Crown witness not accused of wrongdoing, was hazy about what he recalled. But in a text message that was deemed inadmissible as evidence by Carroccia, Howden described Dubé slapping E.M.: 'Dude, I'm so happy I left when all that s— went down. Ha, ha,' Howden wrote to Taylor Raddysh. 'Man, when I was leaving, Duber was smacking this girl's ass so hard. It looked like it hurt so bad.' And in a statement to Hockey Canada in 2022, Formenton described watching Foote enter the room, take off his pants and straddle E.M. in the splits, naked from the waist down. Formenton described E.M.'s hand touching Foote's genitals, but didn't see anything beyond that. The whole incident lasted less than a minute, he told Hockey Canada's investigator Danielle Robitaille. That statement was not heard in court because it is not admissible as evidence. It was excluded in a pre-trial motion — along with statements by McLeod and Dubé — when a judge found that Hockey Canada had coerced the players to give the statements by threatening lifetime bans from the organization if they did not cooperate with Robitaille. As the defense attorneys laid out their arguments for reasonable doubt, the players were effectively portrayed as victims unfairly dragged back to London because of something that happened when they were mere 'boys.' Several times through the trial the defense complained about protestors taunting the players as they entered the courthouse. Advertisement E.M. refused to take responsibility for her own actions, they said — though she repeatedly expressed regret for having gone home with McLeod and cheating on her boyfriend. What she refused to accept was that any other action that night was consensual. And so, it was E.M.'s memory of that act alone against the 'boys.' While she was cross-examined by attorneys for each of the accused, E.M. allowed that it was possible that the gaps in her memory could be colored in with unexpected behavior, including, as the defense repeatedly suggested, that E.M. said what the men claimed she said. But she consistently stressed that it didn't sound like something she'd say or do. E.M.'s recollection of the incidents, the defense argued, was simply not credible, regardless of how memorable those acts would have been. Legal liability requires the high bar of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the measure of moral culpability there is less room for absolution. Consider, from the players' perspective, the most generous explanation for that night is one in which the entirety of E.M's testimony is rejected. In that version, the players went to a room where a lone woman laid naked after consensual sex with one of their teammates. That woman, surrounded by nearly a dozen players, by varying accounts, goaded them into sexual acts — despite their shock and apprehension. A sheet was laid on the ground. They received oral sex from her, in front of their teammates. One had vaginal sex with her in the bathroom. At least one tapped her buttocks. One stood over her and lowered his crotch toward her torso in the splits. It was an embarrassing, but exciting situation. Her sexually charged taunts made them feel awkward, as they shared chicken wings and mozzarella sticks they had ordered. Even in that interpretation, it is difficult to imagine that a single player in that room made a decision they are proud to explain. Advertisement Within the players' own varied accounts of what happened that night — within the embarrassment and discomfort — there is a hint of understanding that something wasn't quite right. At least one heard her weeping and a slap so hard it made him decide to leave the room. And when they were done with her they sent her wandering alone, into the near-dawn in tears. They had to golf in a few hours. That's the best version of this story, told through their own recollections. The key detail, from their view, was that she asked for it. Many choices were made in London that night. Many choices brought the champions back, seven years later — and will linger long after. Maybe it was all bad luck. Maybe they met the wrong woman, who sought a 'wild night' but then regretted it. It's possible. In a gap of memory, as the defense continually noted, pretty much anything is. It's also possible that a different person might have returned to that old fortress instead. Earlier that evening, back at Jack's — as The Athletic previously reported — one of the five accused met a different girl. It was clear they were a hockey team, but it wasn't clear which. The players were buying drinks and handing them out to girls, she said. They kissed several times, before he tried to 'pawn' her off to his friends, repeatedly trying to get her to kiss them as well. Later, he pressed her to come back to 'their' hotel. She declined, feeling uncomfortable and saying she had to work in the morning. She felt the man was 'really odd.' Later, through Snapchat, he again pressed for her to visit their hotel. Again, she declined. 'I didn't see anything happen to other women,' the woman said. 'But I can only imagine with the way they were being with me.' Perhaps the familiar blueprint was just a coincidence. It's another detail, of many — seven years and counting — that remain lost in the fog of that one night in London. (Illustration by Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Courtroom sketch of the five defendants from earlier in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial by Alexandra Newbould / The Canadian Press via AP)
New York Times
7 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Hockey Canada sexual assault trial is over; decision coming July 24
LONDON, Ont. – The Hockey Canada sexual assault trial has concluded after eight weeks of testimony, evidence and submissions, with a judge's decision to follow late next month. Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote are all charged with sexual assault after an alleged incident in June 2018 in which E.M. — whose identity is protected by a publication ban — has said she was sexually assaulted over the span of several hours in a London, Ont., hotel room. The players were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their 2018 World Junior Championship victory. Advertisement McLeod is also facing a second charge for 'being a party to the offense' for what the Crown has asserted was his role 'assisting and encouraging his teammates to engage sexually' with E.M. All five players pleaded not guilty. In closing submissions, Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham took issue with the 'consent videos' filmed by McLeod as exculpatory evidence, arguing the verbal prompts by McLeod in the second video — beginning the video with 'Say it,' and subsequently interjecting 'What else? — illustrated that they were neither evidence of E.M. providing consent nor evidence of McLeod taking a reasonable step to ascertain consent. Cunningham argued that the videos instead support E.M.'s testimony — that McLeod was 'hounding' her to say the activity was consensual, which E.M. said was not a reflection of how she felt at the time. 'She's simply agreeing with him when he's making it clear what he wants her to say,' Cunningham said. Crown attorney Heather Donkers presented Justice Maria Carroccia with a path to conviction for each defendant. The Crown highlighted credibility and reliability issues with the accused and asked the court to find that E.M. did not have a choice so she could not have provided consent. Additionally, Donkers detailed how none of the defendants took reasonable steps to ascertain consent, which the Crown argued demonstrated their 'recklessness' or 'willful blindness' on the consent issue. The Crown incorporated case law demonstrating the need for 'greater care' exercised with those 'reasonable steps' in situations such as when the accused is unfamiliar with the complainant or the complainant is intoxicated or vulnerable. The Crown argued that all these caveats applied to the circumstances within Room 209 that night. (Dubé also admitted in his 2018 police interview that he was, at one point, holding a golf club, which represents an additional factor to the 'greater care' requirement with respect to his specific case, Donkers said.) Advertisement Cunningham concluded the Crown's case by referring to a statement E.M. made near the end of her seven-day cross-examination, in which she described being objectified and laughed at. 'Literally, any one of those men could have stood up and said, this isn't right. And no one did. No one noticed that,' E.M. said, while being cross-examined by Julianna Greenspan. 'No one thought like that. They didn't want to think about if I was actually OK or if I was actually consenting.' Cunningham said that the reason none of the players intervened was because of their 'willful blindness and recklessness.' 'No one thought like that,' she said. 'Because they were thinking in terms of rape myths and mistakes of law about what consent is and how it can be communicated.' All five defense teams were given the chance to put forth final reply submissions and focused on a variety of aspects of the case. David Humphrey, attorney for McLeod, argued that the Crown was manipulating evidence, distorting the timeline and jettisoning arguments that were inconsistent with their arguments. Riaz Sayani, Hart's attorney, largely focused on what he argued was the Crown's misapplications of law, including invoking trauma principles for circular reasoning and 'bootstrapping' information to augment their case. Hilary Dudding, attorney for Formenton, argued that myth-based stereotypes should not be applied to defense arguments just as the same as for Crown positions. She cautioned the judge against accepting false binary propositions and to instead allow for the possibility that a woman could be enthusiastic and consenting within the environment the defense describes without it being characterized as 'bizarre' or 'odd.' Lisa Carnelos, attorney for Dubé, addressed the contact her client had with E.M.'s buttocks, calling it 'playful' and arguing that the 'Crown has not disproved that she was consenting.' Advertisement 'It was playful, possibly foreplay,' Carnelos said. 'And in no way looked to be harmful or with the intention to be abusive.' Julianna Greenspan, who represents Foote, took aim at the Crown, criticizing what she said was an earlier suggestion that further evidence exists that was not permitted to be considered in court. Without a jury, those documents are available to the public. 'That was a factually wrong and unfair comment to make,' Greenspan said. She also took issue with a slide shown earlier in the day that indicated there was 'no evidence from Callan Foote.' Had this still been a jury trial, Greenspan said, she would have called for mistrial, even at this late stage — calling the slide 'illegal.' 'It runs contrary to the Canada Evidence Act, which states failure of the accused to testify shall not be made the subject of comment by counsel for the prosecution,' Greenspan said. She further suggested that the slide was purposefully included to influence the media. 'Everyone in this courtroom knows the attention in this case has garnered from the media and public,' Greenspan said. 'The Crown, I submit, has throughout this trial been preoccupied with litigating the public opinion through the media. This is an upsetting final example on behalf of my client.' After the defense attorneys completed their final statements late Friday, Carroccia addressed the parties involved in the two-month proceedings. 'We've come the end of this long trial,' she said. 'Thank you all for the very professional manner in which you prosecuted this case, which we all know has garnered a lot of public attention. 'We will return on July the 24th for my decision and the accused will be present in person that day.' Minutes later, court was adjourned. Smiling politely, the defense attorneys and the Crown shook hands, as the London courtroom emptied out. Advertisement The facts now sit with Carroccia. E.M. said that she met McLeod at Jack's, a popular bar in London, and after a night of drinking and dancing, left with him to have consensual sex with him at his hotel in the early-morning hours of June 19, 2018. E.M. said that after that sexual encounter, McLeod invited his teammates to his room to engage in sexual activity, without her knowledge or consent. E.M. said that over the course of the night, she was pressured to perform a number of sexual acts with the players, including oral sex with McLeod, Hart and Dubé and vaginal sex with Formenton. She also said she was slapped on the buttocks and that Foote did the splits over her and grazed his genitals in her face. She described being spit on, slapped and asked to insert golf clubs and gold balls in her vagina. The crux of the Crown's case hinges on consent. Canada has affirmative consent laws, meaning consent must be active and ongoing throughout each specific sexual act. The Crown contends that once men began arriving in the room, E.M. found herself in a 'highly stressful' and 'unpredictable' situation that caused her to feel fear. Naked, drunk, and in a room of eight to 10 men who were strangers to her, E.M. described feeling vulnerable and unsure what would happen if she did not do what they wanted. She detailed going on 'autopilot' — dissociating as a trauma response to get through the night. The Crown argues that E.M. did not voluntarily consent to any of the specific sexual activity. The Crown does not dispute that E.M. may have been compliant, or even appearing eager to engage in sexual activity, but contends that she was acting out of fear of what would happen had she resisted. The Crown emphatically denies the suggestion that she was the sexual aggressor or the one who encouraged McLeod to invite his teammates over to the hotel room for group sexual activity. Instead, the Crown suggests that McLeod was the 'architect' of the night and that when facing scrutiny and potential discipline over sexual assault allegations, the players colluded with one another to ensure they told the same story to investigators. The defense's case centers around E.M.'s credibility, which all five legal teams have repeatedly questioned and sought to undermine. Attorneys for the accused say that E.M. was the instigator of the group sex, urging McLeod to invite his teammates back to the hotel room for a 'wild night.' Advertisement The defense portrays E.M. as the initiator who was aggressively demanding sex, chirping the players and insulting them when they refused to take her up on her invitations. Multiple players testified this is what they remembered from that night. The defense argues that she was an enthusiastic participant who regretted the encounter after the fact and fabricated a claim of sexual assault to save face with her boyfriend, her friends and family and to advance a civil lawsuit against Hockey Canada, which was resolved via an out-of-court settlement in 2022. Defense attorneys say that she told a 'white lie' in the aftermath of the event that 'snowballed' into the current criminal case and that she has repeatedly tailored and shifted her narrative to remedy the case's deficiencies and to advance her own 'agenda.' They say that her previous statements and testimony have been riddled with inconsistencies and that she lied under oath. The fate of the five players will linger for the next six weeks as Carroccia will decide on the charges and be tasked with explaining her decisions in written form. She has set July 24 as the date for that decision. The Crown has a significant burden in a case like this. Prosecutors must prove each charge beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. That doesn't mean they must prove their case with certainty, but the standard is a high bar to clear. Carroccia has sided with the defense on most of the substantive issues during proceedings, including the admissibility of key evidence, the Crown's attempt to cross-examine one of its key witnesses once that witness essentially turned hostile, and the very nature of the proceedings. She has discharged two different juries — the first resulting in a mistrial, the second resulting in a bench trial. Both discharges followed allegations of improper conduct by one particular defense team. Both times, the Crown fought to preserve a jury. Advertisement Carroccia intervened significantly more, and at times more pointedly, with the Crown on its arguments over the final days of the trial. One extended back-and-forth session between Carroccia and Cunningham on Thursday was contentious enough that Cunningham appeared exasperated, eventually abandoning her argument because she said she could tell Carroccia didn't find it persuasive. On Friday, Carroccia seemed to imply that the Crown was using witness testimony of Brett Howden and Tyler Steenbergen selectively: 'I just find it interesting the way the Crown relies on the evidence, for instance, of Mr. Steenbergen and Mr. Howden and the way you're asking me to consider their evidence,' Carroccia said. 'Because effectively what you're saying is where it doesn't help the Crown, don't accept it — but where it helps the Crown, accept it.' — The Athletic's Dan Robson contributed reporting remotely from Toronto. (Photo by Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press via AP, File)
