Alleged victim in 2018 World Junior case gets humiliated in ‘blame-the-victim’ approach by defense

The trial for five players on Team Canada’s 2018 World Junior hockey continued on Tuesday as defence lawyers cross-examined the complainant in the sexual assault trial of five ex-members of Canada’s world junior hockey team.

The poor alleged victim was ridiculed and humiliated on the stand when counsel questioned E.M.’s fear and asking why she did not just leave the London, Ont., hotel room in 2018. E.M. explained how she felt “intimidated” as multiple men “towered over her” and felt she had “no choice” but to do as the players said. She also rejected earlier suggestions she “liked the attention” at the bar before the hotel.

This is the breakdown of the cross-examination by TSN’s Rick Westhead. Warning, this can be tough to read:

“.M., the complainant in the sexual assault trial of five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team, finished having consensual sex with Michael McLeod and then asked him to text his teammates and invite them to come and have a “wild night” with her, a defence lawyer suggested on Tuesday.

David Humphrey: “I suggest you said something like, ‘Get some of those guys back here. I want to have a wild night.’”

E.M.: “That doesn’t sound like something I would say and I don’t remember saying those words.”

Humphrey, who is McLeod’s lawyer, earlier suggested E.M. knew McLeod was a rich hockey player when she drank and danced with him at a downtown London bar before going to his hotel room.

Humphrey: “I’m going to suggest that part of what made Mr. McLeod attractive to you is that he was an elite hockey player and he was loaded.”

E.M.: “I was living at home at the time and comfortable. I had my own job, so it didn’t mean much to me.”

E.M. testified she didn’t learn that McLeod and his teammates played for Canada’s 2018 world juniors team until her mother “pieced that together” after the incident.”

On Monday, E.M. had testified how never consented to group sex with McLeod’s teammates. She described feeling “degraded” and “humiliated,” as players spit on her, slapped her, and encouraged her to insert golf balls and golf clubs into her vagina.

Last week, the court heard graphic descriptions of the alleged assaults that took place. Namely, Alex Formenton and McLeod are accused of having vaginal sex with the victim without her consent, McLeod, Carter Hart and Dillon Dube are alleged to have obtained oral sex without the victim’s consent, Dube is also accused of slapping the victim’s behind without her consent and Cal Foote is accused… essentially… of “tea bagging” the victim without her consent. That is, where he ‘grazes’ his genitals over her face.

Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart and Michael McLeod have all pleaded not guilty.