NHL
Hockey
Canada Trial
LONDON, Ont. — A day after leaving court early in tears, E.M. — the complainant in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial — returned to the stand with renewed vigor, at times sparring with veteran defense attorney Megan Savard.
It was the fourth straight day E.M. faced cross-examination from defense attorneys of the five former members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team who face charges of sexual assault stemming from the alleged incident while players were in London, Ont., for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their 2018 World Juniors championship.
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Through the entirety of her cross-examination, E.M. is not able to consult with a lawyer.
Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote sat at separate tables beside their attorneys as E.M. appeared on CCTV from another room in the courthouse. All five players have pleaded not guilty.
On Thursday morning, Savard — defense attorney for Hart — continued the cross-examination that was cut short when E.M. grew flustered and broke into tears the previous afternoon.
The proceedings featured a combative back-and-forth between the witness and the defense as they discussed discrepancies in E.M.’s current memory of the evening and past statements she made when interviewed by police and in a Hockey Canada investigation into the allegations.
E.M. has testified that after a night of drinking and dancing at Jack’s Bar, she returned to the hotel with McLeod and engaged in consensual sex. Afterward, she said, men showed up in the hotel room without her consent and that she was scared. E.M. said that she was asked to lay down on a bedsheet on the floor, and did so because she felt she had no choice. Over the next couple of hours, she said she was coaxed into performing oral sex, vaginal sex, and was slapped and spit on. When she tried to leave, E.M. says she was pressured by the men to remain.
Savard challenged E.M. on her testimony during the trial that she heard men in the hotel room telling each other not to let her leave as she cried, while heading toward the door.
On Thursday, E.M. told Savard she cried at least two times as she tried to leave. But she could not recall the exact wording the men had used when they commented on seeing her cry and attempted to keep her in the room.
“I appreciate the words may not matter to you,” Savard said. “But it matters to me whether you actually heard someone say ‘don’t let her go.’ Is it fair to say you don’t actually remember those words being said?”
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E.M. said she had a memory of the sentiment, but not the exact wording.
Savard argued that while E.M. has been clear about feeling like she was not allowed to leave the room, there is a difference between saying “don’t let her leave” and “don’t leave.” E.M. said even though she worded the exchange differently on the stand than she had in past statements, she was trying to express the same thing.
Savard suggested that she came up with a “more criminal” word choice while on the stand than she used when questioned by police in the days after the incident. E.M. disagreed with that assertion, arguing that she had just had a traumatic experience and was not in a proper state of mind to fully explain every small detail while speaking to a stranger.
E.M. repeatedly mentioned that she was 20 years old when she spoke to police and was trying to explain what happened as best she could because she had “never been traumatized before.”
“I’m going to further suggest that the version you told the police in 2018 is a lot less criminal-sounding than the version you told the jury today. Agree with that?” Savard said during one exchange.
“No, I don’t, because I think my feelings and sentiments about it remain the same regardless of my word choice,” E.M. replied.
Savard then asked whether E.M. agreed that the words she used in 2018 are “a lot more innocuous” than the words she used this week.
“I think, just since I’m older and more mature and I do have a better understanding of what’s happened to me, the word choice I use now does fit exactly how I felt that night,” E.M. said. “I feel like maybe the word choice (in 2018) doesn’t sound as severe, but that doesn’t mean that I meant it in a different way.”
Later, when again discussing E.M.’s word choices, Savard pointed out that though E.M. was 20 when she spoke to police, she was also halfway through a university degree.
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“I knew that was going to come up,” E.M. said under her breath.
“Still, after something like this, it’s really difficult for me to try and communicate what had just happened,” E.M. said. “Yes, I was educated, but I’d never been traumatized before, so I didn’t know how to respond to that.”
Savard and E.M. also had, at times, testy exchanges about whether, at one point that night, E.M. cried in the main room of the hotel, where the other people in the room could see her, or in the bathroom. Savard suggested E.M. never told police she cried in the main room, which she has said during the trial.
Savard read from the transcript of E.M.’s 2018 conversation with police, when she said, “I would get up to go to the bathroom. I would start crying. … I could hear them. They’re like, ‘oh she, she’s crying,’ and they were just telling me to come back out.”
Those lines corroborated what she had said earlier, that people in the room noticed she was crying, E.M. said.
Savard then asked where in the transcript E.M. referred to two or more men saying, “she’s crying, don’t let her leave.”
“Yes, it’s right there, where I say, ‘And I could hear them. They’re like, oh, she’s crying,’” E.M. responded forcefully, as she read from the transcript.
“That’s exactly me speaking on what I heard them say,” she said. “Thank you for finding that.”
Later, Savard also pressed E.M. on why she declined to take a urine toxicology test during the sexual assault medical evaluation she was given on June 22, 2018, several days after the incident.
E.M. said she was under the impression from the nurses administering the exam that too much time had passed for the test to reveal any drugs that might have been in her system. Previously, E.M. has said that she felt that she might have been drugged, based on a suggestion from her mom when she saw her the morning she returned from the hotel.
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Savard suggested that E.M. had a moderate amount of alcohol before going to the hotel with McLeod.
On Thursday afternoon, Daniel Brown — attorney for Alex Formenton — began his cross-examination of E.M.
Brown asked E.M. who she felt was to blame for what happened that night in London.
“You said you’re not at fault and that you’ve never been at fault,” he said.
“I don’t agree,” E.M. said. “The words I was repeating in the shower when my mom found me were, ‘It’s all my fault.’”
When Brown asked if E.M. still felt that way today, she acknowledged that she did feel like that but was trying to move past it.
“Move past that and blame others?” Brown replied. “You said you blamed yourself for many years about what happened to you. You no longer blame yourself. Who do you blame?”
“I still have some blame,” E.M. said.
“Do you believe that it’s easier to deny your deliberate choices than to acknowledge the shame, guilt and embarrassment that you felt about your choices?” Brown asked.
“I’m not sure I agree with you,” E.M. replied. “I have a lot of blame for myself, but I think other people should be held accountable for that night.”
Brown later pushed E.M. on whether she felt responsible for the amount of alcohol she consumed and suggested that she drank to unleash an “alter-ego” who acted on her impulses and made decisions that she wouldn’t make while sober.
Brown laid out decisions E.M. made on her own accord.
“It was your choice to get drunk?” Brown asked.
E.M. acknowledged it was.
“I should be allowed to do that and not worry about having something bad happen,” she said.
In the last hour of the afternoon, the thumping bass of music could be heard through courthouse walls as a crowd gathered for a street party ahead of a London Knights game. The brick road between the Ontario Court of Justice and the Canada Life Place, where the major junior team plays, was closed off for a street party.
Court adjourned early. E.M.’s cross-examination will continue on Friday.
— The Athletic’s Kamila Hinkson contributed reporting remotely from Montreal.
(Photo of Carter Hart and his attorney Megan Savard outside the courthouse in London, Ont., recently: Geoff Robins / The Canadian Press via AP)
