Hockey player’s statements to investigators, police, included at ex-teammates’ trial

Portions of statements that a former member of Canada’s world junior hockey team made to Hockey Canada investigators and police are now part of the evidence in the sexual assault trial of five of his ex-teammates.

Brett Howden told the court Friday that the comments reflect what he knew to be true at the time he made them, even though he does not currently have any memory of those events.

In one excerpt, he told Hockey Canada investigator Danielle Robitaille that he heard the complainant crying as he was leaving the London, Ont., hotel room where the encounter at the heart of the trial took place.

“I just heard her kind of weeping and I didn’t know, like, what was going on. So I just I just went to my room because I didn’t want to be a part of anything,” he told Robitaille in an interview weeks after the alleged sexual assault.

The day after the encounter, Michael McLeod showed Howden a video of the complainant saying it had been consensual, he told Robitaille.

“He said that was, like, after she had her little episode. He’s like, this is when she calmed down, so I don’t know if that means after she was crying and stuff,” Howden said in the statement. “What he said to me is, like, he thinks that she was embarrassed, like, that’s what I kind of thought and I think he kind of thought that too.”

McLeod, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

The charges relate to an encounter in a London, Ont., hotel room in the early hours of June 19, 2018. At the time, many of the players on the 2018 national world junior team were in town for a Hockey Canada gala, court has heard.

The Crown alleges McLeod, Hart and Dube obtained oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube slapped her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.

Foote is accused of doing the splits over her face and grazing his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant inside the bathroom without her consent.

The woman first met some of the players at a downtown bar and eventually left with McLeod, court heard. The two of them had sex in his hotel room, an encounter that is not part of the trial.

The woman told the court she was naked, drunk and afraid when men she didn’t know started coming into the room afterward, and she felt she had to go along with what the men wanted her to do. She described going on “autopilot” as a coping mechanism as she performed sexual acts.

Defence lawyers have presented a drastically different narrative, suggesting the woman actively participated in and instigated the sexual activity.

Court has seen two cellphone videos prosecutors say were taken by McLeod about an hour apart that night. In the first, someone asks the woman twice if she’s “OK with this,” and she agrees twice. In the second, the woman smiles as she holds a towel against her body and says it was “all consensual.”

The woman testified the videos don’t reflect how she felt at the time.

Howden told the court he went to McLeod’s room to get food and was surprised to see a woman there. The woman soon began “begging” the men for sexual acts, he said, and both Hart and McLeod received oral sex.

He saw Formenton head towards the bathroom with the woman at one point, but couldn’t recall seeing them go inside. Howden also mentioned Dube “spanking” the woman, but didn’t recall seeing it himself.

When Hockey Canada launched its probe, both Dube and Foote called him to ask that he not bring them up in his interview with investigators, he said.

Howden repeatedly said he couldn’t recall details of the events during his testimony earlier this week, even after reviewing his previous statements.

As a result, prosecutors sought to cross-examine him on more than a dozen points they said were inconsistent with past remarks.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia denied part of the Crown’s request but said the application could proceed to the next stage on some parts. At the time, she said Howden did not seem as though he was trying to distance himself from his previous statements.

He adopted several parts of those statements Friday, meaning they can be used as evidence despite his lack of memory. As a result, the Crown said it is abandoning its application to cross-examine him on the remaining points.

Prosecutors are also seeking to have texts Howden sent to another then-teammate, Taylor Raddysh, admitted as evidence.

In the exchange, which took place about a week after the incident, Howden describes some parts of the encounter, including a moment when he says Dube slapped the complainant on the buttocks.

“Dude, I’m so happy I left when all the s–t went down haha,” the message reads. “When I was leaving, Duber (Dube) was smacking this girl’s a– so hard, like it looked like it hurt so bad.”

The Crown sought to introduce the messages related to the slap as a “past recollection recorded” — a prior statement captured in some form — due to Howden’s lack of memory even after reviewing his previous statements.

Part of the test to admit a recorded recollection as evidence is establishing whether the witness can vouch for its truthfulness, and Carroccia found Howden didn’t meet that threshold.

“Although Mr. Howden testified that he wasn’t trying to lie when he sent that message, he did not testify that that message was true,” the judge said Friday.

“He was uncertain and said different things in examination in chief and cross-examination about that message, at times agreeing that he cannot say that it was accurate, and at other times saying he had no reason to lie.”

The Crown is now seeking to have the texts admitted through what it called the last avenue available: the principled exception to hearsay, a mechanism through which hearsay evidence can be admitted if it is deemed necessary and reliable.

Defence lawyers for the players are opposing the application, which Carroccia is expected to rule on Monday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 23, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press