Complainant in hockey players’ sex assault trial is not credible, defence argues

LONDON — A woman accusing five hockey players of sexual assault made up a false narrative because she didn’t want to take responsibility for her decisions, a defence lawyer for one of the players argued as final submissions in the case began Monday.

David Humphrey, who represents Michael McLeod, argued the complainant presented an “entirely unbelievable and unreliable” version of what transpired the night of June 18 into the early hours of June 19, 2018, including that she engaged in sexual acts in a London, Ont., hotel room because she was afraid.

He argued the woman may not have been willing to acknowledge to others or even herself that she had been “sexually adventurous in a hotel room” with several men she had just met, and created a narrative “in which she bears no responsibility” for her participation.

She was upset that she had cheated on her boyfriend and felt McLeod and Alex Formenton, another accused player who was his roommate at the hotel, had been rude to her as she left, Humphrey said.

When her mother found her in the bathroom at home, looking upset, “it suited her purposes to present herself as a victim,” the defence lawyer argued.

“But what started as … an understandable white lie shared in private with her mother snowballs beyond her control into a criminal investigation.”

McLeod, Formenton, Dillon Dube, Carter Hart 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.

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

Foote is accused of doing the splits over the woman’s 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.

All five were members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team. They were in London with many teammates for a series of events marking their gold-medal victory at that year’s championship, court has heard. Most of the team ended up at a downtown bar, Jack’s, after an open-bar gala hosted by Hockey Canada, court heard.

The complainant, who was 20 at the time, was at the bar with some co-workers and eventually left with McLeod to go to his hotel room, where they had sex, court has heard. That encounter is not part of the trial, which instead focuses on what happened after several other players came into the room.

Shortly after 2 a.m., McLeod sent a text to a team group chat asking if anyone wanted a “three-way” and listing his room number, according to screenshots shown in court. Hart replied, “I’m in.”

The woman was drunk, naked and scared when men she didn’t know came into the room, she told the court during days of testimony, and felt unsure of how they would react if she didn’t go along with what they wanted. She described feeling her mind “shut down” and engaging in sexual acts while on “autopilot.”

In his submissions, Humphrey noted the onus is not on his client or the other accused players to prove their innocence or disprove the Crown’s case, nor is the court’s task to assess whether the men “could have been better behaved or more respectful.”

Whether the complainant subjectively consented to the sexual activity is the crux of the case, and while only she can provide direct evidence of what was in her mind at the time, her credibility is “central” to the issue, he argued.

Her account of non-consensual sexual activity is undermined by some of what she told police in 2018, the evidence of other eyewitnesses and other reliable evidence, he further argued.

Humphrey suggested the woman came up with the explanation that she engaged in sexual acts because she was scared when she turned to the civil courts after the initial police investigation was closed without charges in 2019.

The detective in charge of the case at the time told the woman he didn’t have grounds to lay charges in part because she didn’t appear intoxicated in videos that showed her coming in and out of the hotel and because it seemed there was a “certain level of consent given her active involvement,” court has heard.

Det. Steve Newton had also viewed two videos McLeod recorded of the complainant about an hour apart, court heard. Both videos were shown at trial. In the first, someone asks the complainant twice if she’s “OK with this,” and she agrees. In the second, she holds a towel against her body and says, “it was all consensual.”

Two of the players in the room, Tyler Steenbergen and Brett Howden, as well as Hart, testified that the woman at some point asked the group whether anyone would have sex with her.

When that suggestion was put to her during cross-examination, the woman said she didn’t remember saying it, but if she did, it was a sign that she was out of her mind from intoxication.

Humphrey said the idea that someone would invite everyone in a room to have sex as a way to get out of a frightening situation is “preposterous.” Someone terrified would “do the minimum to avoid harm,” he argued.

McLeod did not mention the text he sent to the group chat in his interview with Newton in November 2018, which was played in court during trial. He told the detective he mentioned to “a few guys” that he was ordering food and had a woman in his room, and that he didn’t know “how guys kept showing up.”

Humphrey argued his client’s comment is consistent with the fact that he “was only really inviting a limited number of people” and “he was surprised, as was she … by the number of people that came.”

He also argued it could be inferred the woman knew about the text and was waiting for others to arrive because McLeod was communicating with some of the players he was trying to recruit while in her presence. Hart testified he and McLeod spoke on the phone shortly after the text.

The videos McLeod took of the complainant present “crucial evidence” that she was consenting and not scared, even though they were taken after the fact, Humphrey argued. “She doesn’t look like someone who’s terrified,” he said.

Hart was the only one of the accused players to take the stand in his own defence. His lawyer, Megan Savard, argued Monday he should be acquitted based on his testimony, which she said was supported on key points by some of the Crown’s own witnesses.

Taken together, their evidence paints a “sketchy but recognizable picture” of a “brief and unambiguously consensual” instance of oral sex early in the sequence of events, Savard argued.

Savard urged the judge to accept Hart’s evidence that he made an “explicit and specific request” for oral sex after the complainant offered vaginal sex. The complainant agreed verbally and through her actions, the defence lawyer argued.

There is also no evidence of the classic factors capable of vitiating or removing consent, such as physical coercion, blocking the door or threats, Savard argued.

The case against her client rests on the complainant’s “amorphous, unfounded feeling” that some of those things might happen if she asserted herself, the lawyer argued.

Hart testified the woman said “yeah” or “sure” after he requested oral sex and helped him pull down his pants.

Lawyers for the other players will also get the opportunity to make submissions to Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia, followed by prosecutors. The judge is also expected to set a date to deliver her ruling.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press