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Front Burner Transcript for July 25, 2025

Guest Host: Elaine Chau

ELAINE CHAU: Hi, I'm Elaine Chau, in for Jayme Poisson.

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EC: A trial that was seven years in the making came to its conclusion on Thursday, with all five former Hockey Canada players found not guilty of sexual assault.

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MICHAEL MCLEOD'S LAWYER: Justice Carroccia's carefully reasoned decision represents a resounding vindication for Mr. McLeod and for his co-defendants. Justice Carroccia found that the complainant's testimony was incredible and was unreliable.

E.M.'S LAWYER: We look to this case as a turning point to do more to prevent sexual violence, and to make reforms to afford survivors better treatment by the justice system.

EC: Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé, and Cal Foote were acquitted in a London, Ontario courtroom by Justice Maria Carroccia. McLeod was also found not guilty of being party to a sexual assault. All five had pleaded not guilty. The case stemmed from an alleged hours-long sexual assault in a London hotel room of a woman known as E.M. That alleged incident led to a civil suit that Hockey Canada quietly settled in 2022. News of that settlement brought on a massive reckoning for the organization as a whole, sparking a country-wide conversation about sexual assault, consent, and hockey culture. The Athletic's senior enterprise writer, Dan Robson, is here with me. He's been covering this trial, and spent years analyzing the long history of sexual assault claims in Canadian hockey. And full disclosure, he's also our host Jayme's husband.

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EC: Hi, Dan.

DAN ROBSON: Hi, Elaine.

EC: There's been a lot of interest in this trial in London, you know, which is a big hockey town. Dozens of protesters have been showing up during the proceedings to support E.M., the woman at the centre of the case. Others have shown up to support the accused. They needed a second overflow room to accommodate everyone who came to hear the ruling. And I know you're talking to us from Toronto, but your colleagues were there in person today. And what's been the reaction to the decision in the courtroom and outside of it?

DAN ROBSON: Yeah, I mean, it was a real sort of circus this morning. More people showed up than have showed up at any time during this uh, the two-month trial before this. There was a lot of attention at the very beginning, and it, you know, sort of waned throughout, and journalists were there, and regular spectators were there. But today it was, you know, two overflow rooms just completely packed. There was a lot of sighs of relief from the players and their families in the halls. And there was obviously a lot of reactions from lawyers and, um, and spectators outside in terms of the outcome, which, I think to many, was just sort of a... not necessarily shocking, but a um, sort of a dramatic end to what has been an ongoing saga that's captivated Canadians for years now.

EC: Dan, I want to talk through the ruling with you, but first, you know, what did E.M. allege happened here?

DAN ROBSON: So the allegations go back to London in 2018, after a Hockey Canada fundraiser, gala and golf tournament event that was happening in the city at that time. And E.M. said she met a group of players at the bar that night -- at Jack's Bar, a very popular bar in London -- went home to the hotel with one of them -- Michael McLeod – consensually, and then after that, more players arrived in the room. And um, she said that she was sexually assaulted by multiple players at that time.

EC: How would you describe broadly like the narrative that the defence countered with?

DAN ROBSON: They took E.M.'s claims, and sort of one by one, from the very beginning of that evening -- from sort of the pre-drinking at her family's house, to everything that happened that night leading up to the engagement with Michael McLeod, and then everything that happened subsequently -- they tore that apart piece by piece. She was on the stand for nine days. Seven of those days were through cross-examination, facing five very high-powered defence attorney teams. And essentially every claim that she made, they found, you know, something to pull at. And it was, it was um, it was sort of a dismantling of the claims against these players.

EC: And I think at the heart of it, that the case that they were making, that she was really... she was a willing participant, and that she had initiated much of the sexual activity.

DAN ROBSON: Yeah, not just a willing participant, as you said, and that she initiated. She was the-- framed as the aggressor. She was framed as the person who was asking for all of these sexual acts to occur. Um, that the players were called "boys" frequently by the defence and "men" by E.M. herself and by the Crown, which was an interesting framing of, um, just sort of how, how [unclear] people involved. But they were portrayed as sort of being bashful and embarrassed and unsure of what to do and shocked by the things that she was saying. Meanwhile, she talked about having sort of gaps in her memory of that night, and allowing that she may have said things that she normally would not have said -- which she said was a result of excessive alcohol use, and then also of a-- sort of a traumatic response in which she sort of left her body in a way and sort of left her mind and reacted to what, she said, the players were encouraging her and forcing her to take part in.

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EC: Let's go through the judge's decision. Uh, which was quite lengthy, her analysis. And what parts of E.M.'s testimony was the judge not convinced by?

DAN ROBSON: I mean, there wasn't much that she was convinced by, to be honest. From the start of her ruling -- which took the majority of the day in court as she read out the facts -- she said that, you know, from the very beginning, she said she did not find E.M. to be credible or reliable as a witness. She went through the events at the bar leading up to the engagement at the hotel and what happened there, and took the previous claims that E.M. had made about players surrounding her and buying her alcohol and sort of forcing her to drink. And video evidence that had been presented in court, um, created a different narrative in that sense. There was incidents where she talked about the players grabbing her hand and trying to place it on their, um, their crotches, and the only video evidence of that from Jack's Bar was of her voluntarily doing something similar. And so, from the very beginning, she looked at all the things that have been said by E.M. in her testimony and in her past claims, and said that there were so many gaps and inconsistencies that she was not credible. One specific area she looked at too was the alcohol consumption of that night, and videos showed her, by the judge's assessments, sort of being steady on her feet throughout the night and not showing visible signs of intoxication. The defence went to great lengths to suggest that E.M. had consumed less alcohol than she presented in terms of her claims. And Justice Carroccia agreed with that assessment.

EC: At one point, she also, you know, mentioned in her analysis that E.M. also told the court that the men likely wouldn't have physically stopped her from leaving. She made note of E.M.'s use of the term, like, "her truth" versus "the truth." There was also, you know, some testimony from E.M. during the trial that put context around those decisions, including why she didn't leave. And what did she say about her reasoning on that night, and what was the judge's view on it?

DAN ROBSON: Well, she felt that from the start that she was scared and afraid. After having a consensual sexual encounter, more men arrived in the hotel room and began egging her on and sort of saying do this and do that. They'd laid the bed sheet down, by her claim, and asked her to perform all sorts of sexual acts. And she went to a state of saying that she had immense amount of fear at that time. That she was-- her reactions were based on that fear, and not feeling that she, she could leave in that moment. And so, those claims were sort of dismissed by Justice Carroccia. She said that she didn't buy the idea that E.M. was afraid that night, that she felt intimidated. She felt that the, the multiple claims from the players in the rooms identifying what E.M. had said, and how she was acting and acts that she was doing, did not align with this idea that um, that E.M. was afraid. And that, that somehow initiated consent.

EC: Speaking of consent, Judge Carroccia also spoke about the two consent videos that were presented as evidence during the trial. And Dan, could you briefly remind us of what those were?

DAN ROBSON: Yeah, there are two videos that were taken, both by Michael McLeod, and they're taken at different times during that-- those early hours of June 19th when these incidents were taking place. And in both cases, I guess E.M. is saying-- that she's asked, 'Is this consensual?' And she's saying, 'What happened was consensual.' And she's sort of agreeing with what is being asked of her. And those were presented in court multiple times. One of those-- The final one, video, is taken at 4:30 in the morning, and it's said to have been taken after this sort of final engagement with McLeod and before she left for the night. And in it, the Crown pointed out, you can hear him saying, you know, um, you know, say it, and what else. And she said that... at first she said she didn't remember having those videos taken, but then she also said that, you know, she recalled him sort of hounding her to say these things. And that discrepancy was problematic for Justice Carroccia in terms of her assessment of her credibility, in terms of sort of that inconsistency between the memory of what occurred. And, and that was something that was brought up as well. But also the assessment of Justice Carroccia was that she did not appear intoxicated in those videos. There was no sign that, you know, there was like a difficulty speaking, there was no slurring of words. She spoke coherently in those videos. On the face of them, you know, whether or not they're actual indications of consent, what they were used for is a visual of sort of her state at that time and how she was acting. You can't give consent after fact. Consent has to be continuous to each and every separate act that occurs during a sexual encounter in Canadian law. But the assessment of the evidence presented through them was that she was [inaudible], she wasn't drinking, and she had her own assessment of those videos. Memory of those videos was part of the gaps in her memory.

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EC: After the trial, E.M.'s lawyer said that her treatment on the stand, the cross-examination...

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E.M.'S LAWYER: At times was insulting, unfair, mocking, and disrespectful.

EC: Could you flesh that out for me a bit?

DAN ROBSON: I think it was very evident throughout the cross-examination of E.M. that there was a very clear contempt for and disbelief in her statements from the very beginning. So one of the things that I kind of found somewhat shocking -- at the time, it was a jury trial, and the defence didn't sort of present this sort of with, you know, kid gloves. I mean, they went right at her. From the very beginning, they accuse her of wanting a wild night [unclear] at one point. Um, one of the defence attorneys sort of, uh, gave her this idea of this sort of uh, alter ego in which he, um, noted that "Funny M," he called her, used her real name in that sense, and went through each event of like that evening. Like, oh, when she, when she's Funny M, she does this and she does this and she does this. And there was a sort of a taunting cadence to, to the way that played out. Um, you know, the reality in the situation is that E.M. was on the stand, as I mentioned, for, you know, seven days, and through that time, she's not able to consult with anybody -- with her own lawyer or counsellor, with the Crown themselves. She's considered a witness at that time who's in the middle of her testimony and cross-examination, and she can't have any consultation with anyone. So there was this, you know, feeling of this sort of breaking down of E.M. And one, one day, court adjourned early because she broke down in tears. And then the next day she came back, you could tell she felt somewhat combative and was sort of ready to, as she had mentioned, sort of speak her truth, which was one thing she was also criticized for in that sense.

EC: Let's move on to what convinced the judge about the testimony and evidence that the players' lawyers presented. And she spoke about the group chats in particular that came after the alleged incident. Tell me a little bit more about that.

DAN ROBSON: A week after the incident on June 18th, the players learned that Hockey Canada was investigating what had occurred. And this comes with a great deal of shock and concern to them. There was sort of this... The day after everything had happened, E.M's mother had gone to police, and Michael McLeod had learned about the sort of police involvement. And he had pushed her to, he said, sort of make this go away, this is not a true statement. And that, that engagement was going on between them. But when Hockey Canada learned about it and they said they were going to investigate what happened, the players that had been in the room that night got together on a group chat and started discussing sort of what to do or what had happened. And it's interesting, the Crown framed what they were discussing in terms of saying, like, you know, 'we had consent,' and, you know, that the way they were chatting back and forth about sort of 'what should we do next' as evidence of a collusion; a um, an effort to get their story straight. And the defence tried to frame those same conversations as scared young boys who saw their careers in jeopardy, and saw, um, sort of a shocking response to something that they believed was entirely consensual, and this sort of came out of left field for them. And they saw the back and forth with the players, or they argued the back and forth of that players was, was a very human reaction to that kind of a threat. But uh, Justice Carroccia did not view it that way. She agreed with the defence's assessment that those reactions were just the players that had been involved discussing what they saw and having a very honest conversation about it.

EC: Yeah, I think her exact words were that they were recounting their recollections.

DAN ROBSON: Yes.

EC: I should also point out that the judge also said that it was not up to her to look at the, quote, "morality or propriety of the conduct of any of the persons involved in the events." I thought it was notable that she made that very explicit.

DAN ROBSON: Yeah. And I think that... You know, I kind of expected her to say something like that. And it's true, I mean, the objective of the court is to determine whether beyond a reasonable doubt these allegations have been proven. And it's up to the Crown to prove those allegations. And in this case, there's obviously a very high bar to prove sexual assault. And in a high-profile case like this, where there's obviously lots of commentary, there's an entire, you know, beloved sport in this country that is sort of being looked at under a new microscope, and has been looked at under a microscope for years, for good reason, um, this ends up being a conversation about morality. At the same time, it's a question of the law. And so for two months, as this played out in headlines and in news stories, this very serious conversation about, you know, I guess very exact conversation about law, about what the definition of consent is and how do we determine, you know, what sexual assault is specifically, also gets tied up in public commentary about, like, what is-- sort of went wrong? What should people have been doing in that room? And anybody that followed this case had these conversations, you know, in bars, or with co-workers, or in elevators, when they sort of had an assessment about, you know, who was right and who was wrong. Justice Carroccia addressed that, obviously knowing, like, I think, part of the high-profile nature of this case. And, you know, she doesn't have to assess whether any of the players in that room were upstanding citizens that night, for example. That's, that's not what the question is. The question is whether they committed a very serious offence, and she found that they did not. And that's the only question that was being addressed in each of the defendant's cases.

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EC: Dan, many of the lawyers for the defendants talked about, like, the impact on the accused here in light of the ruling, and what did we hear on that front? This was something that they actually spoke about during the trial as well.

DAN ROBSON: Yeah, I mean, throughout the trial, there was, you know, the defendant, the defence lawyer, attorneys, you know, commented on sort of media coverage and this sort of unfair assumption of guilt before, you know, any trying of the facts. And there was this sort of look at these players who had, you know, had established careers or were, you know, well in their way, in the middle of this sort of dream that they had spent their entire lives pursuing. And all of that was put on pause and derailed. And in the life of a professional athlete, I mean, that's significant. I mean, to not be able to continue your trade at 27 years old is very detrimental to your ability to do that in the future, and to sort of working in the sort of prime of your career. And so this notion of, of [unclear] this hardship that they were enduring throughout this was prominent throughout. And for those players and for, you know, from their defence attorneys' perspective, this is sort of the beginning of finally putting this behind them.

EC: You and your colleagues have reported on the history of accusations of sexual misconduct by junior hockey teams. You know, oftentimes a group of players with one young woman; the lack of criminal convictions or serious sentences when a conviction is reached. And thinking about all of those stories now and also today's ruling, you know, how does today's ruling fit into that history for you?

DAN ROBSON: I mean, that's such an interesting question. I think it's a question that we'll be struggling with for some time as we sort of step away from this, this trial and the outcome and sort of where everything falls afterwards. But as you mentioned, looking back, you know, Katie Strang and I at The Athletic have gone back through, you know, multiple decades of previous allegations. And it's very rare in which you have hockey players involved in allegations by a single female complainant, and that there is a conviction. There's sort of this repetitive nature to these claims that you could just look through by searching the news from the past. So, young men elevated to high positions in communities where they're esteemed, and viewed as sort of local heroes. And in this case, in particular, you have the highest sort of level of junior hockey player -- you have the World Junior team. So this is like the best of the best when it comes to our national game's young stars, the future of this sport. And so when we have those allegations coming against players like that, and then we have these past allegations against players of similar status, I mean, it frequently comes into question of, you know, like what's happening here. In the past, it's said, well, these players are, you know, they're in the spotlight. Of course there's going to be accusations against them because they're desired and, you know, they're, they're sort of vulnerable to these kinds of claims. And, you know, others would say, well, you know, actually, maybe there's more to this. Maybe there is a culture of entitlement and misogyny that's, you know, inherent within the sport, especially at a high level. And I mean, anybody who's played the sport at a high level, anyone who's been in locker rooms across this country, knows that that exists. I mean, if you say it doesn't exist, you're just putting your head in the sand and not really addressing sort of a root of a wider problem. And the question that comes next for this is... You know, this outcome is rested. I mean, the court has decided that there's, there was no criminal guilt here. And that, you know, that is sort of separate to the further questions that can be had about, you know, how these, how these incidents continue to occur. Because these incidents did happen. And even by the players' own accounting of what happened that night, without E.M.'s version of what happened that night. Um. I think it's fair to say that what happened, I think anybody would say, like any parents, coaches, the players themselves, might sort of look back and say, like, obviously, you know, very, very bad decisions were made there. And so I think when we, um, when we step back from this, from the news of what happened with this trial, I think there is a wider conversation that needs to be happening about how this incident happened, but also how all of these past incidents have happened. I'm interested in knowing whether or not this high-profile case, this one that sort of created a national crisis where we're talking about it in Parliament and Justin Trudeau is, you know, talking about it and it's sort of making international headlines, whether that's enough for real change. Because obviously in the past decades as these allegations have emerged in different settings, they continue to persist.

EC: Dan, thank you for your time today.

DAN ROBSON: Thank you.

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EC: That's all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Matthew Amha, Allie Jaynes, Joyita Sengupta, Mackenzie Cameron, Matt Meuse, Lauren Donnelly, and myself. Our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Music is by Joseph Shabason. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Lokos. I'm Elaine Chau, filling in for Jayme Poisson. Talk to you Monday.

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Breaking down the not guilty Hockey Canada decision - Transcript

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