Hockey players’ sexual assault trial watches Michael McLeod’s police interview

One of five hockey players accused of sexual assault didn’t tell police in a 2018 interview that he sent a text message asking teammates if any of them wanted to have a “three-way” in his hotel room after he had sex with a woman he’d met at a bar earlier that night, court heard Tuesday.

Michael McLeod spoke with the lead investigator in the case at the time, Det. Steve Newton, in November 2018, just a few months after the encounter. A video of the interview was played in court Tuesday, marking the first time the trial has heard directly from McLeod on the events at the heart of the case.

At one point in the interview, Newton asked McLeod whether he believed more men came into the room as the night went on because they knew there was “a naked girl in the room who’s doing sexual favours for people.”

“I don’t know how guys kept showing up,” McLeod said. He acknowledged there had “probably” been some messages of that type but denied sending any of them.

“I just told the guys I was getting food and there’s a girl over there, that’s all I said to a few guys,” McLeod replied.

Court has seen a text McLeod sent to a team group chat shortly after 2 a.m. that night, asking if anyone wanted to be in a “three-way” and listing his room number. Another accused, Carter Hart, replied, “I’m in.”

In another text previously shown in court, McLeod told then-teammate Taylor Raddysh to come to his room if he wanted a “gummer,” which Raddysh testified he understood to mean oral sex. Raddysh, who is not accused in the case, did not appear to reply.

McLeod, 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.

The charges stem from an encounter that took place in a London, Ont., hotel room in the early hours of June 19, 2018.

At the time, many members of the 2018 national world junior team were in town for a series of events celebrating their championship win.

The complainant, who was 20 at the time, testified she met some of the players at a bar and went with McLeod to his hotel room, where they had sex. That sexual activity is not part of the trial, which centres on what happened after other men came into the room.

The woman was drunk, naked and scared when men she didn’t know came into the room, and felt she had to go along with what they wanted, she testified. She engaged in sexual acts while on “autopilot,” she said.

Prosecutors allege 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 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.

The defence, meanwhile, suggests the woman actively participated in and initiated the sexual activity, at times taunting the men to have sex with her. The woman maintained she has no recollection of saying such things, but that if she did, it would have been a sign of her level of intoxication.

McLeod told police he and the others were “stunned” when the woman, who cannot be identified under a publication ban, started asking them to have sex with her.

He said he checked in with her throughout the night to make sure she was “OK with this” and took videos where she expressed her consent.

“It was like a weird situation that I wasn’t expecting was going to happen with all the guys coming in,” he told Newton.

“I was just kind of worried something like this might happen,” so he recorded the first of the videos, he said. In that video, which has been shown in court, the woman is asked twice if she’s “OK with this,” and she agrees both times.

The woman didn’t seem “hammered by any means” at the bar and seemed to sober up as the night went on, McLeod said.

“She looked like she was kind of leading the way,” he said.

A few guys had already arrived in the room when McLeod went to pick up his food order, he said. When he returned, the woman was giving oral sex to Hart while the others hung out on the other bed, he said. “She seemed completely fine with it,” he said.

More men arrived, including Formenton, he said. Formenton didn’t want to have sex in front of the others so he and the woman went to the bathroom and came out 10 to 15 minutes later, McLeod said.

Another group of men arrived shortly afterward, for a total of eight or nine, he said. The woman was naked on the bed, asking if anyone would have sex with her, but no one wanted to do it in front of the others, he said. She became upset, and McLeod said he had to calm her down.

McLeod said he and Hart received oral sex, and maybe Dube. Later, near the end of the night, McLeod said the woman came into the shower after him and they had sex.

At the outset of the interview, Newton, who is now retired, told McLeod he didn’t believe he had the grounds to lay a charge of sexual assault and didn’t have any plans at that point to arrest or charge him.

Newton closed the investigation without charges in 2019. It was reopened in 2022 under a different investigator.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press