Carter Hart seems to blame one specific teammate in 2018 World Junior assault case

The sexual assault trial of five former Hockey Canada world junior players continued on Friday with Carter Hart being cross-examined by the Crown, after he began his testimony as a defence witness on Thursday.

The former Philadelphia Flyers goalie who, along with Cal Foote, Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton and Michael McLeod have been charged, claims that E.M., the complainant, willingly participated in sexual acts on the night of the alleged assaults in June 2018.

First Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham questioned him about his drinking and the celebrations following the team’s world junior hockey win and how Hart was looking for a sexual encounter. After trying to get some teammates to go with him to a strip club, Hart received the infamous text from McLeod in the group chat, saying, “Who wants to be in a 3-way quick” and including his room number. It was sent to the whole team, but Hart says he thought the offer was for him only.
Hart responds, “I’m in,” at 2:19 a.m.

“You knew the invitation wasn’t just to you?” Cunningham asks.

But Hart insists that when he saw the text, he didn’t think it was an invitation for the team to engage in sexual activity.
Hart agrees he assumed “it was an agreed-upon plan” between McLeod and the woman.

Per CBC, as Cunningham pressed Hart, he maintained that he hadn’t made up his mind about whether he wanted to take part in sexual acts with her when he replied to McLeod’s text. The former goalie, who showed up at the room with Rob Thomas and Alex Formenton after they received the text invitation, admitted that he didn’t ask McLeod what the woman looked like, what she was into or whether she was interested in getting together with them.

“Did you like the idea of engaging in sexual activity with McLeod and a woman?” Cunningham asks.
“I was OK with it,” Hart answers.

“You don’t know her age, her level of intoxication, her physical appearance, her degree of willingness, and despite not knowing any of those things, you say, ‘I’m in,’” Cunningham says.

“You were drunk that night. You were hoping for sexual encounters that night. You didn’t meet anyone for that purpose and now all of the sudden this opportunity has presented itself,” she states to him.

“I’m going to suggest to you that you didn’t have any reservations. You were in.”

Cunningham pressed on to which Hart seemed to put the blame on McLeod:

“You were putting a lot of faith in your friend Mr. McLeod to set something up that was morally acceptable to you,” Cunningham says.

“Yes,” Hart answers.

Then, when asked about what McLeod was wearing when he made it to Room 209, Hart had to concede he could not remember everything, via CBC again. He claimed that he remembers other guys in the room, including McLeod, who is on the far bed with his pants on but no shirt.

Cunningham suggests it wasn’t pants that McLeod was wearing, and Hart says that’s possible.

“Your memory of him wearing pants is not an accurate memory?” Cunningham asks.

“Right,” Hart concedes.

Hart also explained that when he got in the room, from what he remembers, E.M. on a bed sheet on the floor, touching herself. From CBC:

He says he has no memory of how the sheet got on the floor, of how E.M. got to the sheet, or of food being ordered or people eating it.

Hart says he believes he was the first person to have sexual contact with E.M., but the Crown says he has no way of knowing that.

He says “that’s the way it unfolded; I was the first one.”

But the Crown says it’s not possible for him to say he was the first one, because he has a memory gap.

“You can’t say whether someone asked her or told her to touch herself?” Cunningham asks. Hart responds he cannot say that.

Hart also admitted he had no interactions with E.M. and didn’t even know her name. Hart testifies that men in the room were saying to each other, “‘You do it, you do it.’”

Cunningham asks: “Mr. McLeod said, “You do it?”

Hart says he doesn’t remember who said that.

Cunningham later asked Hart about the guys egging each other on and saying “‘you do it,’” as Hart mentioned about having sex with E.M.

Hart conceded he might have been one of the guys egging others on. From CBC: 

“You understood that if no one presents themselves, no one steps up as tribute, she would leave,” Cunningham says, in reference to what was said in The Hunger Games.

“Yes,” Hart answers.

“You try to get Dante Fabbro to show up — you were doing that to give her a reason to stay. You’re going out of your way to give her a reason to stay,” Cunningham suggests.

She presses Hart about why he cared if she stayed or not. She says E.M. was a stranger and he was not personally invested in her or whether anyone had sex with her.

“Why were you taking steps to get someone else in the room,” Cunningham asks him.

“I don’t know why,” he answers.

Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube, Cal Foote, and Carter Hart are charged with sexually assaulting a woman identified in court documents as E.M. in June 2018 at a London hotel following a Hockey Canada golf and gala event. McLeod faces a second sexual assault charge as a party to the offence.

They have all pleaded not guilty.