What E.M. told the jury over 9 days of testimony in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial
Complainant grilled by defence in London, Ont., trial that's now before a judge alone
WARNING: This story includes graphic details of alleged sexual assault and might affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone who's been impacted by it.
The woman at the centre of the sexual assault trial for five former players with Canada's world junior hockey team finished a marathon nine days of testimony this week in London, Ont. — before a sudden turn in the proceedings.
The accused men are Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart and Michael McLeod, who've all pleaded not guilty. E.M., whose identity is protected under a standard publication ban, gave her account of the alleged assaults and answered hundreds of questions from the men's lawyers.
On Thursday, however, after E.M. had concluded her testimony a day earlier, proceedings stalled due to discussions between Justice Maria Carroccia and the lawyers.
Carroccia discharged the jury on Friday and ruled the proceedings would continue by judge alone.
As a result, the proceedings are continuing where they left off, with Tyler Steenbergen, a former teammate of the men on trial, testifying remotely from Alberta to questions from the Crown. (Steenbergen is a witness and hasn't been charged with anything.)
In the meantime, we can report what E.M. said during her gruelling testimony.
Here's a look at what she said to the jury.
The hotel room
E.M.'s time in Ontario Superior Court began with what was at times graphic detail of alleged assaults in a London hotel on a Monday in June 2018. She recalled to the Crown that the night began awkwardly with drinks with co-workers at Jack's bar, less than a kilometre from the courtroom where she sat seven years later.
Five lawyers representing the five accused then questioned E.M. about her evidence over seven days — such questioning is standard in the trial process, allowing the defence lawyers to ask questions of a witness to support their cases.
E.M. ended testifying after a re-examination by the Crown — which is an opportunity for prosecutors to have the complainant clarify anything said during cross-examination before the trial moves on to other witnesses.
E.M. appeared virtually through closed-circuit television (CCTV) for the full nine days she spoke, with a glass of water and a tissue box on the table beside her. The five accused men listened from the courtroom, each seated at a table with their respective defence teams.
Outside, a crowd of supporters grew from a handful on E.M.'s first day of testimony to dozens of people who later heckled the men and the lawyers.
E.M.'s evidence
To start her testimony, E.M. answered questions from Crown prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham, who asked the woman to take her through the night in question and part of the aftermath.
E.M. said she went to Jack's bar on June 18, 2018, for a night out with co-workers — some she knew better than others. She said she ended up drinking too much to overcome some awkwardness she felt around colleagues she didn't know well.
Some members of the world junior hockey team went to the same bar with their teammates after a gala in London to celebrate their win at the world junior championships that January.
E.M. said someone introduced her to a man at the bar named "Mikey," who she later learned to be McLeod. Later that evening, she said, an older man who appeared to be McLeod's "wing man" was talking up the fact the team member was rich and an elite hockey player.
She described feeling uncomfortable and confused when other men gathered around her as she and McLeod were on the dance floor, but went along with what was going on because she was drunk and trying to enjoy the evening.
E.M. said she and McLeod left the bar in an Uber and went back to his room at the Delta Armouries hotel. E.M. said they had consensual sex, though she doesn't think she would have gone home with McLeod had she been sober.
After sex, E.M. said, she was surprised to find McLeod dressed and using his phone while she was still naked. She said she had assumed she'd be spending the night in the hotel room.
She said the surprise and confusion continued when more men came into the room — No. 209. The sexual activity that followed was not consensual, she testified.
E.M. testified the men put a bed sheet on the hotel floor and asked her to lie down and masturbate while they watched.
During cross-examination, some of the lawyers quizzed E.M. about who put the bed sheet on the floor. Initially, she told investigators one of the first two men in the room put the sheet down. But those two men — who don't face any charges in this case and were in the room briefly — testified as Crown witnesses that they didn't do so and the woman was on the bed when they arrived.
The men also talked about "putting golf balls" in her vagina or wondering whether she could "take" the whole golf club, she testified. She said they spat on her and smacked her buttocks.
The 'consent videos'
E.M. said she performed oral sex on several men.
After oral sex, she said, Foote did the splits over her body so that his genitals were in her face. She said she then made her way to the bathroom, where another man — allegedly, Formenton — had sex with her and received oral sex.
She said the men did not physically force her into the sexual activity and told the court she did not say "no" out loud, other than to tell them to stop slapping her buttocks because she was in pain.
She told the court she was "numb" and "on autopilot, feeling "outnumbered" and "intimidated" by multiple men she did not know towering over her while she was naked on the bed sheet. E.M. described her mind separating from her body, and said she felt herself watching what was going on in the room as if it was happening to someone else. She said the men should have known she was too drunk to consent, even if she did not say as much out loud.
During the proceedings, jurors watched two "consent videos" McLeod filmed that night — one showing E.M. on the hotel floor and another after the other men had left.
In the first video, a voice off-camera asks whether E.M. is "OK with this." She smiles and says: "I'm OK with this."
The second video was taken an hour after the first.
"Are you recording me? OK, good, it was all consensual," E.M. says, holding a hotel towel in front of her naked body. "You are so paranoid, holy. I enjoyed it. It was fine. It was all consensual. I am so sober, that's why I can't do this right now."
In court, E.M. said she doesn't remember making the videos and first learned they existed during police questioning. She said her comments don't reflect her true feelings and believes McLeod was telling her to say, on record, that she consented to the sex to protect himself in the event of an allegation like the one he faces.
Calling the police
E.M. testified she left the hotel in an Uber and got home just after 5 a.m. ET, waking her parents. E.M. said her mother called police after finding her distraught daughter, crying in the shower.
That week, McLeod messaged E.M. and asked her to "figure out how to make this go away" with the police. Screenshots dated June 20, 2018, show the woman apologizing for what she described at the time as a "misunderstanding," and explaining it was her mother who had phoned police and she did not want to pursue the matter further.
E.M. testified she was just trying to deal with McLeod by telling him what she thought he wanted to hear.
In the messages, McLeod wrote back he appreciated E.M. "telling the truth" and wished her "all the best."
E.M. did ultimately speak to the police herself. She initially opted not to pursue charges, instead asking that police have a conversation with the men to prevent something similar from happening to someone else. The complainant said she changed her mind after she found out the police could only talk to the men if they agreed to a conversation — something she didn't believe they'd do.
The 'fun' alter ego
Each defence lawyer focused on E.M.'s behaviour that night. They called into question her recollection of how much she drank, who bought her drinks, where and how she met the men that night, who she spoke to and how she danced. They questioned her about her interactions with police, health-care professionals and friends.
Several suggested their client could not have known she didn't consent to the sex on account of the way she was acting.
David Humphrey, McLeod's lawyer, suggested it was her idea to have McLeod invite the other men into the hotel room and that she was the one who demanded sex.
"I'm going to suggest you said something to him along the lines of, 'Get some of those guys back here, I want to have a wild night,'" Humphrey said to E.M.
Once the hotel room was crowded with men, Humphrey suggested, the woman was saying to them: "'Come on, you've got a girl here. Someone have sex with me. You guys are pussies.'"
E.M. said that was not true and does not sound like the way she'd speak.
Megan Savard, a lawyer for Hart, also suggested E.M. made up the assault allegations because she'd cheated on her then boyfriend, who is now her fiancé — a theory E.M. denied.
Savard grilled E.M. about having told police and the Crown during trial preparation this year that she took on a "porn star … persona" during the alleged assault as a coping mechanism. Savard implied the men could not have known she did not consent.
"I am going to suggest to you that regardless of what you were feeling in your head, you were acting in a way that would make the men in the room think you were consenting," Savard said to the complainant.
E.M. told Savard she was laughing it off and, outwardly, it might have looked like she was OK, but that's not how she was feeling.
Daniel Brown, lawyer for Formenton, also suggested E.M. was "egging on" the players after adopting a "fun" alter ego. He relied heavily on surveillance footage from Jack's bar, which he said contradicted her recollection of the night out. Brown said she did not consume as much alcohol as she thought because the bar's Jägerbomb shot glasses only hold half an ounce — a point he made by bringing real shot glasses from the same bar into the courtroom to show the jury.
Texting her friends
Dubé's lawyer, Lisa Carnelos, questioned why E.M. didn't immediately tell her friends about the assault when they were texting in the days afterward.
Julianna Greenspan, representing Foote, suggested the complainant deliberately changed her language over time to start referring to the accused as "men" instead of "boys" to further the "clear agenda" she brought to the trial.
The complainant said that was not true.
Several lawyers suggested E.M. exaggerated how much she'd had to drink, in part pointing to her ability to walk steadily in high heels on surveillance tape.
More than one defence lawyer seized on inconsistencies between various statements E.M. made in the years since the alleged assault — including a statement to police in 2018 and documents included in her civil lawsuit that was settled with Hockey Canada in 2022.
That settlement led to the revelation that Hockey Canada had used a fund, fed partly by registration fees, to settle various sexual assault lawsuits over the years. The news led to a reckoning for the organization, including lost sponsorships and parliamentary hearings. It also prompted London police to reopen the investigation into E.M.'s case and later charge the five men currently on trial.
Tense moments during cross-exams
E.M. largely maintained her composure during her testimony, though some moments grew tense as she pushed back or when the Crown objected.
There was a brief back-and-forth between E.M. and Brown, Formenton's lawyer. E.M. said one defence lawyer was designing his questions deliberately to discredit her.
She grew frustrated when, at another point, Brown told her she had only been testifying as long as she had because she wasn't answering questions directly.
"I feel this is also my time to stand up for myself when I couldn't that night," the woman responded. "So I'd like to respond how I'd like to respond, if that's all right."
"Well, in fact, it's not all right — you're here to respond to my questions," Brown replied.
After the cross-examination finished, the Crown had the opportunity to run the re-examination of the witness, asking questions so the witness can explain or clarify answers that came up during cross-examination. During a re-examination, lawyers can't cover new ground or bring up new evidence.
E.M. was dismissed around 2 p.m. ET. on Wednesday.
"You have completed giving your evidence, so you are free to go," Carroccia said.
E.M. thanked the justice, stood up and walked out of the room.
If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your area, you can look for crisis lines and local services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
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