Complainant tells hockey players’ sexual assault trial she was on ‘autopilot’

A woman told the sexual assault trial of five hockey players Monday that she felt “numb and on autopilot” going through sexual acts with a group of men she didn’t know in a hotel room seven years ago.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, told the court she was naked, drunk and scared when men started coming into the hotel room where she had just had sex with Michael McLeod, one of the five accused in the case.

Some of them seemed like those she saw at the bar where she met McLeod earlier that night, she said, but she didn’t know their names or keep track of who stayed and left as the night went on.

The men wanted her to lie down on a bedsheet on the floor of the room and seemed to be laughing at her as they discussed sexual acts they wanted her to perform, including some involving golf balls and golf clubs, she said.

“My mind just shut down,” said the woman, who was 20 at the time. She described feeling as though she was watching everything happen from outside her own body.

“I felt like I didn’t really have any other option,” she said, explaining she didn’t know how they would react if she tried to say no or leave. “It seemed like the only safe thing to do was to give them what they were wanting.”

McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have all 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.

All five were members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team. Court has heard many of the team’s members were in London, Ont., the night of the encounter for a gala celebrating their gold-medal win at that year’s championship.

CAUTION: The following paragraphs contain graphic content some readers may find disturbing.

The woman said men towered over her as she lay on the sheet and three pulled down their pants.

“They just started putting penises in my face,” she testified.

Some shouted commands as she performed oral sex, she said, and she felt someone spit on her back. Then, she felt slaps on her buttocks, she said.

Afterward, she lay back on the sheet, and a fourth man did the splits right over her head, putting his penis on her face, she said. It was unexpected and shocking, she said.

“It felt degrading,” she said. “It was all just a joke to them.”

The woman said she heard some of the men encouraging each other, saying one of them should have sex with her.

She went to the bathroom, and one of the men followed her in, she said. He put on a condom and they had sex, and oral sex afterward, she said. It felt like she didn’t have control over the situation, the woman said.

She said she cried and tried to leave at various points, but each time, someone would convince her to stay. “They kept bringing me back,” she said.

She didn’t see McLeod much after their initial one-on-one encounter, she said, adding he briefly left and came back with food.

Near the end, the woman testified that she had oral sex with McLeod again, and multiple people slapped her while that was happening. It seemed like they were trying to hit as hard as they could, she said.

Soon after, McLeod told the men to leave, she said.

The woman was shown two cellphone videos taken about an hour apart in the early morning of June 19, 2018. Prosecutors have said both were taken by McLeod.

In the first, someone asks the woman twice if she’s “OK with this,” and she agrees both times.

She testified Monday that her words in the video did not reflect her feelings at the time, that she was “going along” with what she was being told.

In the second clip, the woman smiles as she holds a towel against her body and says it was “all consensual.”

The woman told the court Monday that McLeod had been “hounding” her to say it before the recording was made, and it “definitely wasn’t” how she truly felt.

She testified that she believed she was holding a towel because she had gotten in the shower with McLeod at his request.

They’d had vaginal and oral sex again in the bathroom, she said, one last thing she felt she needed to do before she could leave.

When she left, her mind seemed to re-enter her body and the emotions she’d been blocking came flooding back, the woman said. She called her best friend from the lobby, “crying uncontrollably,” feeling ashamed and wishing she had responded differently in the moment, she said.

She took an Uber home and showered when she arrived, she said.

McLeod later reached out to her on Instagram, asking her to talk on the phone, court heard. They exchanged several messages, which were shown in court.

In texts on June 20, McLeod expressed concern that the woman had spoken to police and asked her what she could do to “make this go away.”

The woman replied that she was “not trying to push this any farther” and apologized for “any trouble it might have already caused.”

McLeod checked in a few more times to see if she had spoken to police again. He thanked the woman when she confirmed she told police it was “a mistake.”

The woman testified Monday she felt nervous and scared when McLeod reached out to her, and was telling him what he wanted to hear so he would leave her alone.

One of McLeod’s lawyers suggested during cross-examination that the woman was happy to hear from his client, adding she could have blocked him or not answered if that wasn’t the case.

David Humphrey also suggested the woman was upset when she left the room because she had cheated on her boyfriend and felt guilty.

The woman maintained that she felt worried after McLeod contacted her. She agreed that she felt guilty for cheating on her boyfriend but said she told him what happened in the days that followed.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia told jurors Monday that they could only make limited use of evidence related to the woman’s initial encounter with McLeod, which is not part of the trial.

She told them they must not infer that if the woman willingly left the bar with McLeod and had consensual sex with him, it is more likely that she consented to other sexual activity or she is less worthy of belief.

McLeod, Hart and Dube are accused of obtaining oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube is also accused of slapping her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.

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

The Crown alleges McLeod also vaginally penetrated her without her consent at the end of the night.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press