RECAP | After 8 weeks, Hockey Canada sex assault trial ends and fates of accused ex-players rest with judge

The trial has ended and so too have our live updates — for now.

Thank you for sticking with us. We've tried to provide a clear and accurate account of eight weeks of complicated proceedings, and welcomed your feedback in the process.

You can find all of our online reporting on the trial here any time — plenty of daily and in-depth coverage before the judge’s July 24 decisions.

As ever, we know the trial included details that could be difficult to read. There are support services available.

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 Sexual Violence Association of Canada database.

CBC News will have full coverage of Justice Maria Carroccia’s decisions next month.

Until then.

With about 10 minutes to spare before 5 p.m. ET, the case has come to a close, Justice Maria Carroccia tells the courtroom.

She thanks all the lawyers for their submissions and for the “very professional manner” with which they have done their jobs.

The lawyers also thank Carroccia, as well as the court staff, for their time and for sometimes starting early (and dealing with all kinds of technical issues.)

We will return on July 24 — a date Carroccia set earlier this week — for her decisons.

But before the time in the courtroom ends, there is a last-minute question by Carnelos about changing the no-contact order made at the beginning of the trial: That the accused can’t communicate with each other or other witnesses. The lawyers say they’ll deal with that via email.

We at CBC News would also like to thank you, our readers, for following along with our online coverage, as well as for listening and watching our coverage on all platforms.

See you next month.

There’s 20 minutes left on the Friday of the last day of the eighth week of the trial.

At this time, Julianna Greenspan, Cal Foote’s lawyer, delivers her reply to the Crown’s closing statement and says she will be brief (for which the judge thanks her).

Greenspan argues there’s no evidence that any of the men who spoke to Hockey Canada investigators before their then hockey teammate, Tyler Steenbergen, had said anything about seeing naked splits being done over E.M. (Foote’s accused of doing that).

The lawyer also says that yesterday, she sat “not just as a lawyer,” but also as a woman, as the Crown spoke about “general notions” that most victims of sexual assault are women and that they are fearful of it.

“There was no credible or reliable evidence of fear in that room that night, and injecting such generalized notions of women and women’s fears does not and should not make it so in this case.”

There’s been a lot of media reporting and speculation about this case, but Greenspan says, “I urge you to consider all of the actual evidence in this case through the lens of the presumption of innocence.”

Dubé is accused of slapping E.M.’s buttocks really hard.

“It was playful touching. Tapping,” says Carnelos. “To be more fair, a light slap, on the buttocks, and the Crown has not disproved that E.M. was consenting.

“It was playful and possibly foreplay, and in no way looked to be harmful or had the intention of being abusive.”

WARNING: This post contains graphic details.

The onus is on the Crown to prove lack of consent beyond a reasonable doubt, Lisa Carnelos, Dillon Dubé’s lawyer, puts to the judge.

“The burden never shifts and that’s where Your Honour should focus your analysis.”

Carnelos says there was no collusion between Foote and Dubé, and the Crown wants the judge to draw inferences from omissions, which is impossible to do.

E.M. never claimed anyone was holding a golf club, the lawyer says.

“There were golf clubs in the room because there was a golf tournament the next day,” Carnelos says.

(During her testimony, E.M. said the men joked about putting golf clubs and golf balls inside her vagina.)

She says calling the men “young boys” during her closing statements was “a slip of the tongue” and she is not alleging any age difference between her client and E.M.

Carnelos also says the Crown “fairly corrected” her comment that E.M. was “enjoying” her conversation in French in the room that night, but adds the conversation was “friendly” and that E.M. said she was “comfortable” because she starts to speak French when she’s drunk.

It’s myth-based reasoning to think that women can only be “completely passive, or acquiescent or completely sexual,” Dudding says.

Just because E.M. was quiet, shy and under the covers when Raddysh and Katchouk were in the room doesn’t mean it was improbable she was sexually assertive with the other men.

“People can change their demeanour throughout the course” of a night, she says, and inviting other men into the hotel room doesn’t mean they were the only sexual aggressors. Just because the men were inviting others into the room doesn’t mean they were the only sexual aggressors.

After Sayani wraps up, Alex Formenton’s lawyer is now responding to the Crown’s closing arguments.

Hilary Dudding says myths and stereotypes shouldn’t be used by the defence — but they also shouldn’t be used by the prosecution.

The Crown has made the argument that if E.M. was behaving bizarrely, the men should have taken extra steps to ensure she was OK and consenting.

“That reasoning implies that a woman assertively asking for sex is so inherently bizarre and odd that it requires some kind of explanation, other than she is actually excited about it,” Dudding says.

“It’s stereotypical thinking about what kinds of sex people like and don’t like, and that women are OK with or not OK with.”

Dudding notes the Crown asked the judge to find that the atmosphere in the room was “inherently oppressive” — but that’s also based on myth-based reasoning, the lawyer adds.

Sayani says the judge should reject the Crown’s submission about trauma causing E.M. to act how she acted in the room that night because it leads to circular reasoning.

“To presume trauma at the beginning of a credibility test and then using it to forgive inconsistencies” is improper, the lawyer adds.

Using trauma to explain E.M.’s otherwise implausible conduct assumes there was trauma, he says. E.M. didn’t say anything to police about being scared and didn’t mention being scared until 2022, Sayani contends.

Lawyer Riaz Sayani, part of Hart’s defence team, says he wants to address yesterday’s exchange between Crown lawyer Cunningham and the judge, in which they talked about masturbation as not being proof of consent to other sexual acts.

While the masturbation is not a communication of consent, it is circumstantial evidence that consent may be present for following acts, Sayani says.

The video showing E.M. leaving the Delta hotel upset on the night in question is not good “post-conduct demeanour evidence,” Sayani says. In that video, she was upset because McLeod was rude to her and wouldn’t help her find her ring, the lawyer argues.

The second “consent video” is better evidence of E.M.’s demeanour — Sayani said she was “beaming in a towel, speaking clearly and saying she is sober, and enjoyed herself.”

The only thing that happened between those two videos to change her demeanour was McLeod’s rudeness, the lawyer argues.

Humphrey argues that even though McLeod didn’t tell the London police detective in 2018 (during the first investigation) that he sent texts inviting the men to the room, it doesn’t indicate “consciousness of guilt,” as the Crown suggested.

Reading from McLeod’s police statement, Humphrey maintains it’s clear his client is saying he wasn’t sending texts while in the room, after Formenton had sex with E.M. in the bathroom and more men arrived.

“There is no independent evidence that his statement was made to deflect guilt,” Humphrey says.

Humphrey doesn’t address the fact McLeod never told the detective that he sent any texts or that there’s no evidence he asked the men over for pizza.