It's behind a paywall..Why don't you copy and paste the article.
This is the text of the article. I was able to read the full page, but I couldn't save the page a html nor as web page complete; only as text. There was a video of E. M. leaving the hotel in the morning, seemingly having no difficulty walking in heels, cell phone video of E. M. dancing with multiple guys at Jack's Bar, (her face pixelated), and images of text messages
Why didn’t police lay charges in 2019? Inside the London police
investigations in the Hockey Canada sex assault case
London police documents make clear the high-profile sex assault
investigation was reopened in 2022 due to “a resurgence in media
attention” — with the key evidence largely unchanged from 2019.
The call came in to London, Ont., police on June 19, 2018, from a woman
saying she needed advice.
“So my daughter was out at a bar last night, she came home this
morning ... and I can’t really get a whole lot of information out of
her. She’s basically saying she’s embarrassed, she’s ashamed, she put
herself in a bad situation,” the woman said.
“I have reason to believe obviously something happened that she didn’t
agree to. I don’t really know where to go from there.”
That same day, another call came to police, this time from Glen
McCurdie, a vice-president at Hockey Canada. A man had called the
organization reporting his partner’s daughter may have been sexually
assaulted in a hotel room with players, McCurdie told police, and the
young woman didn’t want to come forward.
“All I’m telling you is the allegations that came through the mother’s
boyfriend,” McCurdie said. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Those first phone calls would soon lead to an eight-month police
investigation into an alleged sexual assault committed at the Delta
Armouries hotel in London by members of the 2018 Canadian world junior
team, following the Hockey Canada Foundation’s annual Gala & Golf
fundraising event. A then-20-year-old woman, whose identity is now
covered by a standard publication ban, alleged that she was sexually
assaulted by multiple players after going back to the hotel room of team
member Michael McLeod, with whom she’d had consensual sex after meeting
him at a bar.
Jury dismissed. Hockey Canada trial to go judge-alone after jurors
report being ‘made fun of’ by defence lawyers <file:///news/canada/jury-
dismissed-hockey-canada-trial-to-go-judge-alone-after-jurors-report-
being-made-fun/article_c5db783b-6408-4677-b6e7-2238a9b06107.html>
Jury dismissed. Hockey Canada trial to go judge-alone after jurors
report being ‘made fun of’ by defence lawyers <file:///news/
canada/jury-dismissed-hockey-canada-trial-to-go-judge-alone-after-
jurors-report-being-made-fun/article_c5db783b-6408-4677-
b6e7-2238a9b06107.html>
The Hockey Canada trial will continue as a judge-alone trial after
jurors reported “being judged and made fun of” by lawyers for player Alex
Jury dismissed. Hockey Canada trial to go judge-alone after jurors
report being ‘made fun of’ by defence lawyers <file:///news/canada/jury-
dismissed-hockey-canada-trial-to-go-judge-alone-after-jurors-report-
being-made-fun/article_c5db783b-6408-4677-b6e7-2238a9b06107.html>
Jury dismissed. Hockey Canada trial to go judge-alone after jurors
report being ‘made fun of’ by defence lawyers <file:///news/
canada/jury-dismissed-hockey-canada-trial-to-go-judge-alone-after-
jurors-report-being-made-fun/article_c5db783b-6408-4677-
b6e7-2238a9b06107.html>
The Hockey Canada trial will continue as a judge-alone trial after
jurors reported “being judged and made fun of” by lawyers for player Alex
The inside story of how London police handled the woman’s allegations
can now be made public after a judge on Friday dismissed the jury at the
high-profile sexual assault trial of five professional hockey players
<
https://www.thestar.com/news/jury-dismissed-hockey-canada-trial-to-go-
judge-alone-after-jurors-report-being-made-fun/
article_c5db783b-6408-4677-b6e7-2238a9b06107.html>, following a
complaint from jurors that two defence lawyers appeared to be making fun
of them. The case will move forward as a judge-alone trial.
The police’s probe ended in February 2019 without charges being laid,
only to be re-opened in 2022 amid intense public pressure when it was
revealed Hockey Canada had settled, for an undisclosed sum, a $3.5-
million sexual assault lawsuit filed that year by the complainant.
As London police stated in court records in 2022: “The media attention
surrounding this event is significant.”
That renewed investigation would ultimately lead to sexual assault
charges in 2024 against five players who are now on trial: McLeod, Alex
Formenton, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, and Carter Hart.
The Crown has alleged that McLeod had intercourse with the complainant a
second time in the hotel room’s bathroom; that Formenton separately had
intercourse with the complainant in the bathroom; that McLeod, Hart, and
Dubé obtained oral sex from the woman; and that Foote did the splits
over her head and his genitals “grazed” her face.
Hundreds of pages of documents filed in the court proceedings shed new
light on London police’s original investigation, and finally help
provide answers to burning questions: Why were no charges laid back in
2019? And what changed in 2022 that led the police and Crown to believe
they now had a case?
*The timeline of the two investigations*
The documents reveal that a veteran detective with London police’s
sexual assault and child abuse section spoke to the complainant multiple
times in 2018, including several formal interviews, as she went back and
forth on whether she wanted to pursue charges. At one point, Det. Steve
Newton wondered whether she was being “coerced” to report as a result of
pressure from family and friends. He also interviewed four of the five
players now on trial (all except Hart), telling them upfront he didn’t
have grounds to lay criminal charges. Those who admitted to engaging in
sexual activity with the complainant maintained it was consensual.
What appears to have caused Newton the most doubt that a crime had been
committed was the video evidence: surveillance footage showing the
complainant walking steadily and unaided in heels in the hotel lobby led
Newton to question her account that she was too intoxicated that night
to consent <
https://www.thestar.com/news/my-truth-what-we-heard-from-
the-hockey-canada-sex-assault-complainant-in-nine-days/
article_96470133-1fd3-47ae-907a-be4e88dbd364.html>. And, perhaps most
importantly, two video clips recorded by McLeod of the complainant
smiling in the hotel room following the alleged sexual assaults; in one
of them, she says: “It was all consensual.”
Newton ultimately wondered in a report whether the complainant had been
an “active participant” in the events of June 18-19, 2018; he closed the
case in February 2019.
Fast forward to three years later, and London police’s Det. Lyndsey Ryan
and a team of officers were tasked with taking a second look. While
Newton had his doubts that the complainant was too drunk to consent,
records suggest that the 2022 investigation approached the case from a
different angle: that the complainant only went along with everything
because of the intimidating nature of a hotel room full of men she
didn’t know, and the players should have known she wasn’t actually
consenting <
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/numb-and-on-autopilot-
woman-details-alleged-hockey-canada-sex-assaults/article_b4356f40-
ec43-4ba7-9d89-1093d2cc0b85.html>.
The complainant exits the lobby of the Delta Armouries hotel in the
early hours of June 19, 2018, soon after leaving the hotel room where
she alleges she was sexually assaulted by five members of the Canadian
world junior hockey team.
Source: Ontario Superior Court exhibit
Bolstering the police’s case was a new written statement sent by the
complainant’s lawyer in the summer of 2022, although police describe it
in filings as “substantially the same” as her interviews with Newton in
2018. (At trial, the complainant admitted that the statement contains
multiple errors and was actually written by her civil lawyers.)
Police also had text messages between the players <https://
www.thestar.com/news/hockey-canada-teammate-says-he-saw-players-slap-
complainant-do-splits-over-her/article_39db5fe7-1c77-49db-95cc-
e9499f84c8da.html?mrfhud=true> from 2018 that had been sent to
investigators by their lawyers. And, unlike in 2018, London police
decided to get a court order for records from Hockey Canada’s
independent investigation into the matter, which included interviews
with some of the players now on trial. They had refused to speak to
police in 2022 to exercise their right to remain silent, but faced the
choice of either participating in the Hockey Canada probe or being
banned for life from the organization’s programs — including Canada’s
world championship and Olympic teams.
A judge would later toss the players’ statements from the criminal case
because the way in which they were obtained was so “unfair and
prejudicial” that it harmed the accused men’s right to a fair trial
<
https://www.thestar.com/tncms/asset/
editorial/74d43324-5d90-4798-96bc-6683a5bd9f7a/>.
Finally, in February 2024, London police announced at a packed news
conference <
https://www.thestar.com/sports/london-police-apologize-for-
delayed-charges-in-world-junior-hockey-sexual-assault-investigation/
article_38189904-c467-11ee-9317-bf8fbc763ce9.html> that sexual assault
charges had been laid against the players, most of whom were now playing
in the NHL. Chief Thai Truong offered his “sincerest apology” <https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg15C2jSdPA&ab_channel=LPSOntario><http://
savefrom.net/?
url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dkg15C2jSdPA%26ab_channel%3DLPSOntario&utm_source=ff&utm_medium=extensions&utm_campaign=link_modifier> to the complainant for the length of time it had taken to get to that point, while Det.-Sgt. Katherine Dann said that investigators had followed additional leads, spoken to more witnesses and collected more evidence.
Crown attorneys are required by policy to only prosecute charges laid by
police if there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and it’s in the
public interest. Behind the scenes, records show that Meaghan
Cunningham, the province’s lead sexual assault prosecutor as chair of
the sexual violence advisory group, was warning the complainant that
while the Crown felt it had met the test to prosecute, it was “not a
really, really strong case.”
In a meeting with the woman, her mother, lawyer, and police about three
weeks before the players were charged, Cunningham also told the
complainant that they didn’t have a “strong argument” that she was
incapable of consenting, despite the complainant alleging that in her
lawsuit.
“It is an argument we can make, we will make <
https://www.thestar.com/
news/she-did-not-feel-that-she-had-a-choice-crown-details-sex-assault-
case-against/article_c31efe15-fabe-488c-94bd-43972d3e3f16.html>, but a
judge looking at the totality of the evidence may not accept that
argument,” she said.
‘She did not feel that she had a choice’: Crown details sex assault case
against Canada world junior hockey players <file:///news/she-did-not-
feel-that-she-had-a-choice-crown-details-sex-assault-case-against/
article_c31efe15-fabe-488c-94bd-43972d3e3f16.html>
‘She did not feel that she had a choice’: Crown details sex
assault case against Canada world junior hockey players <file:///
news/she-did-not-feel-that-she-had-a-choice-crown-details-sex-
assault-case-against/article_c31efe15-
fabe-488c-94bd-43972d3e3f16.html>
The courtroom heard graphic details as the Crown laid out its opening
statement in the high-profile case against five former NHL players.
‘She did not feel that she had a choice’: Crown details sex assault case
against Canada world junior hockey players <file:///news/she-did-not-
feel-that-she-had-a-choice-crown-details-sex-assault-case-against/
article_c31efe15-fabe-488c-94bd-43972d3e3f16.html>
‘She did not feel that she had a choice’: Crown details sex
assault case against Canada world junior hockey players <file:///
news/she-did-not-feel-that-she-had-a-choice-crown-details-sex-
assault-case-against/article_c31efe15-
fabe-488c-94bd-43972d3e3f16.html>
The courtroom heard graphic details as the Crown laid out its opening
statement in the high-profile case against five former NHL players.
But Cunningham assured her they had stronger arguments to make on other
issues, according to notes from the meeting. She also told the
complainant that if she was pursuing this hoping for a conviction, she
might want to reconsider.
“If that is why you’re doing this, (it) may not be worth the personal
cost to you,” Cunningham said, according to the notes.
“If you’re doing this to get a conviction, (I) don’t know that will
happen. But if it will give you a sense of accomplishment, then we will
do everything in our power to get the right outcome. A conviction is
absolutely possible.”
The complainant said she wanted to see the case through.
The 2018 investigation: The complainant was an ‘active participant’
Within a day of the initial calls to police in 2018, Newton tried to get
in touch with the complainant, who agreed to speak with him but didn’t
want to go ahead with charges.
The woman said she didn’t want “him” — McLeod — to get in any trouble,
but she also “didn’t want this happening to another girl either,” Newton
wrote in his report.
Meanwhile, McLeod was texting the complainant <
https://www.thestar.com/
news/canada/numb-and-on-autopilot-woman-details-alleged-hockey-canada-
sex-assaults/article_b4356f40-ec43-4ba7-9d89-1093d2cc0b85.html>, asking
if she had gone to the police; the complainant said she believed her
mother had called them.
“But I told her not to. I don’t want anything bad to come of it, so I
told her to stop,” she says in a June 20, 2018, message to McLeod. “I’m
sorry, didn’t mean for that to happen.”
A series of text messages between Michael McLeod and the complainant
after she alleges he and four other members of the Canadian world junior
hockey team sexually assaulted her in a London, Ont., hotel room.
She was “really drunk” at the time, she said, and “didn’t feel good
about it at all after. But I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, I
know I was in the wrong too.”
She said she was fine going back to the hotel with McLeod, but it was
“everyone else afterwards that I wasn’t expecting.” She felt like she
had been made fun of or taken advantage of, she said.
In the messages, McLeod presses her to tell the police to drop the
matter. She finally says: “Told them I’m not going to pursue it any
further and that it was a mistake. You should be good now, so hopefully
nothing more comes of it. Sorry again for the misunderstanding.”
(McLeod would tell Hockey Canada’s third-party probe in 2022 that he
texted her because “we did nothing wrong” and he wanted her to
“straighten this out.)
The complainant did end up speaking to Newton and outlined her
allegations. She also said that the only reason she told McLeod she
wasn’t going to pursue the matter further was so that he would leave her
alone. She told Newton that after meeting McLeod at Jack’s Bar, she
returned with him to his hotel room, room 209, where they had consensual
sex. She said she had become separated from her friends at the bar, and
was feeling the effects of alcohol.
Afterward, the complainant reported several of McLeod’s male friends
coming into the room while she lay naked on the bed. She said a sheet
was placed on the floor, and she fondled herself on it at the men’s
request. She also performed oral sex on approximately four men, and had
intercourse with McLeod’s roommate (later identified as Formenton
<
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/hockey-canada-complainant-says-it-
could-be-possible-she-pulled-player-into-bathroom-where-alleged/
article_ef80e252-2ff9-410b-8f19-74f1ba832ee5.html>) in the bathroom.
Michael McLeod films a selfie video with the complainant on the dance
floor inside Jack's Bar.
Ontario Superior Court exhibit
“She said that a couple times during this event she got dressed and was
going to leave, however, the males coaxed her to undress again, and she
complied,” Newton wrote.
She left after having sex once more with McLeod. She soon returned to
retrieve a ring in his room, but said that “Mikey” became “mean and
derogatory” when she showed up, Newton wrote.
From the complainant’s description of the event, Newton wrote, “it did
not sound like at any point she had lost consciousness during this event.”
After McLeod’s teammates entered the room, the officer continued, the
complainant “appeared by her account of the event to be an active
participant.”
He went on to write that the complainant never reported telling the men
she didn’t want to perform those sex acts or asking them to stop; the
only instance where this happened is when a man “suggested they insert a
golf club and golf balls into (her) vagina.” She told them no, and they
didn’t pursue it further.
While it’s difficult to be certain in the early stages of the
investigation, Newton wrote that he left the interview with the belief
that the complainant wasn’t too intoxicated to make decisions for
herself. “And further that there may have been a certain level of
consent given her active involvement,” he wrote, adding: “I informed
(her) of this concern.”
As the complainant debated in 2018 whether she wanted to see charges
laid, Newton continued his investigation, reviewing surveillance footage
from the hotel lobby on the night of the alleged incident.
“I cannot conclude from viewing the video that either when arriving or
leaving the hotel (the complainant) is overly intoxicated,” Newton wrote
in his report. “She is walking in stiletto heels, is not wavering as she
walks unassisted. She appears steady on her feet, is not leaning on
anything or holding anything/anyone to assist her as she walks.”
Credit: Ontario Superior Court exhibit
He told her the issues in the case “were her level of sobriety as well
as the issue of consent.” He said he’d have to review the case with a
Crown attorney before deciding whether to lay charges. He also noted in
his report that he provided her advice on a lawsuit.
The complainant “acknowledged that she has been getting pressure from
family and friends to pursue charges and that this is not necessarily
what she wants right now,” Newton wrote.
She told him she’d like for him to “suspend this investigation for the
time being,” and that she may contact him again later to have it re-opened.
The 2018 investigation: ‘It was all consensual’
By mid-July 2018, the complainant was again wanting to pursue criminal
charges. ”She informed me that she has given the matter more thought and
that she does not want to look back on what happened to her in the
future and regret not pursuing it further and doing everything she could
to ensure this does not happen to someone else,” Newton wrote.
He had been continuing his investigation, as he worked to identify who
may have been in the room that night. He spoke to Danielle Robitaille,
the Toronto lawyer leading an independent probe into the matter for
Hockey Canada, asking that she pass along his message that he wanted to
speak to members of the 2018 team who were now spread out across North
America. He soon began hearing from some of the players’ lawyers.
The complainant asked Newton if he could access Robitaille’s file,
including her interviews with the players. The complainant herself had
declined to participate in that probe until the end of the police
investigation. Newton said Hockey Canada’s lawyers made clear they
wouldn’t turn the file over. He also told one of the players’ lawyers,
according to his report, that because he didn’t believe a crime had been
committed, he didn’t have grounds to get a warrant for the Hockey Canada
file.
What seems to have further cemented Newton’s belief that no charges
should be laid were two short video clips <
https://www.thestar.com/news/
canada/it-was-all-consensual-alleged-victim-in-canada-world-junior-
hockey-sex-assault-case-said/article_30a73dea-9c3a-41c0-bd17-
e4b3566a5c61.html> sent by McLeod’s lawyer, David Humphrey, in the
summer of 2018. They both depict the complainant in the hotel room, as
McLeod can be heard asking if she’s consenting. In the first clip,
Newton noted she appears to be wiping something from her eye and is smiling.
McLeod asks her off-camera: “You’re OK with this, right?” and she
responds, smiling: “I’m OK with this.”
‘It was all consensual,’ alleged victim in Canada world junior hockey
sex assault case said on video <file:///news/canada/it-was-all-
consensual-alleged-victim-in-canada-world-junior-hockey-sex-assault-
case-said/article_30a73dea-9c3a-41c0-bd17-e4b3566a5c61.html>
‘It was all consensual,’ alleged victim in Canada world junior
hockey sex assault case said on video <file:///news/canada/it-was-
all-consensual-alleged-victim-in-canada-world-junior-hockey-sex-
assault-case-said/article_30a73dea-9c3a-41c0-bd17-e4b3566a5c61.html>
Prosecutors intend to show that the woman was complying because she was
surrounded by large men she didn’t know while separated from her friends.
‘It was all consensual,’ alleged victim in Canada world junior hockey
sex assault case said on video <file:///news/canada/it-was-all-
consensual-alleged-victim-in-canada-world-junior-hockey-sex-assault-
case-said/article_30a73dea-9c3a-41c0-bd17-e4b3566a5c61.html>
‘It was all consensual,’ alleged victim in Canada world junior
hockey sex assault case said on video <file:///news/canada/it-was-
all-consensual-alleged-victim-in-canada-world-junior-hockey-sex-
assault-case-said/article_30a73dea-9c3a-41c0-bd17-e4b3566a5c61.html>
Prosecutors intend to show that the woman was complying because she was
surrounded by large men she didn’t know while separated from her friends.
In the second clip, she’s covered with a towel, and still smiling.
“Are you recording me? OK, good, it was all consensual,” she says. “You
are so paranoid, holy. I enjoyed it. It was fine. It was all consensual.
I am so sober, that’s why I can’t do this right now.”
Newton concluded that the complainant didn’t seem intoxicated in either
video. “She does not appear to be in distress or non-consenting,” he wrote.
(McLeod told Hockey Canada’s probe in 2022 that he took the videos “for
cover, in case she regretted it at some point in her life.”)
The woman didn’t have a clear recollection of the videos when asked
about them, Newton wrote, other than to say the first video would have
been taken after the sexual contact with multiple men, and the second
video just before she left the hotel room. Although she says in the
second video that she’s sober, the woman maintained to Newton that she
was actually very intoxicated and “trying to act more sober in their
midst as part of putting on a brave face.”
She explained “feelings of being overwhelmed by these males and feeling
that she had to follow through with their requests,” Newton wrote.
(Later, in her written statement in 2022, the complainant said she was
just saying whatever she thought the men wanted to hear. “It seemed to
me that they made these videos because they knew they had just spent
hours degrading a really drunk girl,” says the statement.)
‘My truth’: What we heard from the Hockey Canada sex assault complainant
in nine days of testimony <file:///news/my-truth-what-we-heard-from-the-
hockey-canada-sex-assault-complainant-in-nine-days/
article_96470133-1fd3-47ae-907a-be4e88dbd364.html>
‘My truth’: What we heard from the Hockey Canada sex assault
complainant in nine days of testimony <file:///news/my-truth-what-
we-heard-from-the-hockey-canada-sex-assault-complainant-in-nine-
days/article_96470133-1fd3-47ae-907a-be4e88dbd364.html>
The jury has heard — in graphic detail — her allegations about what took
place inside a London, Ont., hotel room in 2018.
‘My truth’: What we heard from the Hockey Canada sex assault complainant
in nine days of testimony <file:///news/my-truth-what-we-heard-from-the-
hockey-canada-sex-assault-complainant-in-nine-days/
article_96470133-1fd3-47ae-907a-be4e88dbd364.html>
‘My truth’: What we heard from the Hockey Canada sex assault
complainant in nine days of testimony <file:///news/my-truth-what-
we-heard-from-the-hockey-canada-sex-assault-complainant-in-nine-
days/article_96470133-1fd3-47ae-907a-be4e88dbd364.html>
The jury has heard — in graphic detail — her allegations about what took
place inside a London, Ont., hotel room in 2018.
By February of 2019, Newton had interviewed or received statements from
about half of the approximate dozen players who were believed to be in
the room that night and either engaged in sexual activity or watched,
and still Newton did not have reasonable grounds to believe a sexual
assault had occurred.
He interviewed McLeod, Formenton, Dubé, and Foote — at the time Foote
was believed to have only been a witness — telling them upfront he did
not have grounds to lay a sexual assault charge. The men all maintained
the sexual acts they engaged in or witnessed were consensual. Hart
refused to speak to police, Newton noted.
After reviewing all of the evidence with his superior, the detective
closed the case without laying charges. In breaking the news to the
complainant, he told her that the hotel lobby surveillance footage
<
><
http://savefrom.net/?
url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D3dfNW6lQSQ4&utm_source=ff&utm_medium=extensions&utm_campaign=link_modifier> and the clips from the room were a “big part” of the evidence pointing away from her being too drunk to consent.
The complainant “said she was satisfied with the investigation and
understands this result,” Newton wrote. “She was happy that she stood up
for herself and made this report to police causing the subjects of this
investigation to need to speak to what they did.”
(“I was glad that the police tried to investigate, but I was very
disappointed that they thought there was not enough to go further,” says
the complainant’s 2022 statement. “I was too drunk to consent, and Mikey
and the other guys should have known that. Any decent guy would have
seen how drunk I was and not done what they did.”)
*The re-opened 2022 investigation: ‘Her subjective non-consent’*
While Truong wouldn’t comment last year on what led to the investigation
being re-opened in 2022, his officers make clear in court records that
it was due to public pressure.
A group chat including a text from Michael McLeod inviting his teammates
to his hotel room.
“Given a resurgence in media attention, the London Police Service has
reviewed this investigation with the aim of determining what other
investigative means exist and whether reasonable grounds exist to charge
any person,” wrote officer David Younan in what is known as an
“Information to Obtain” (ITO) — an application by the police for a court
order to seize potential evidence.
Younan wrote in the heavily redacted document in 2022 that as part of
the renewed probe, investigators discovered the existence of a group
chat between the players from 2018. Some of their lawyers had actually
turned the text messages over, and police were just waiting for a court
order to view them. Records show that McLeod texted other players: “Who
wants to be in 3 way quick,” and Hart replied: “I’m in.”
In the days following the alleged incident, the players had texted each
other about the Hockey Canada probe, with McLeod telling his teammates:
“We all need to say the same thing if we get interviewed can’t have
different stories or make anything up.”
The police also needed a court order to seize the investigative file
from that independent investigation, Younan wrote.
He noted that Robitaille had told a House of Commons committee in 2022
that she was in possession of a “range of evidence.” Younan expressed
particular interest in the statements the players gave to Robitaille
under penalty of being banned from Hockey Canada, statements a judge
would later toss from the criminal case. While most of the players now
on trial had spoken to London police in 2018 — when they were told
upfront that there were no grounds to lay charges — they had declined to
speak to police in 2022.
Group text messages between some members of the 2018 world junior hockey
championship team after they learned about an internal Hockey Canada
investigation. (The texts appear in a multi-page court exhibit and have
been excerpted by the Star to fit in a single image.)
“It is reasonable to believe that Danielle Robitaille asked different
questions of the players than our own investigators, and therefore,
elicited different answers or new information about what occurred,”
Younan wrote in the ITO. “Any new information would also afford evidence.”
Court records show police also re-interviewed several people, including
the complainant’s mother, who had found her distraught daughter rocking
back and forth in the bathtub on June 19, 2018, repeating “it’s all my
fault.” Her mother tried to find out what was going on, asking her if
she had had a fight with her boyfriend.
“It’s all my fault, I have to break up with (my boyfriend),” her mother
reported her saying.
The re-opened investigation focused on two elements, Younan wrote in the
ITO: whether the complainant “subjectively consented” to the sexual acts
in the hotel room, and whether the players knew that the complainant did
not consent.
Unlike in 2018, Younan said in the ITO that London police now had
grounds to believe a sexual assault had been committed. Pointing to the
complainant’s new 2022 statement, Younan said she “most clearly
expressed her subjective non-consent” when she wrote that she didn’t
want to do what they were making her do, and that she was unable to say no.
While she may not have been physically prevented from leaving the hotel
room, the complainant also felt like she couldn’t leave given the number
of “large” men in the room, she said in her written 2022 statement sent
to police.
“I was trying to say no, but I couldn’t speak up and things were already
happening,” she said.
Younan wrote that when taking a global view of the evidence, the
complainant “subjectively believed that she had no alternative but to
engage” in the sexual acts.
“Further, I believe that each of the suspects knew or ought to have
known that (the complainant) had not consented.”
In her meeting with the complainant just before charges were laid last
year, Cunningham told her that while most of the news articles from 2022
“accept as true what is in your statement of claim,” the public’s view
of the case could shift as evidence was presented in court. She pointed
to the video evidence in particular, while saying she doesn’t look at
the clips as proof of whether or not the complainant could consent.
There is a “real possibility that the current perception of what
happened could change,” Cunningham said.
