Crown cross-examines one of five hockey players accused of sexual assault

“Walking in, I didn’t know,” Hart replied.

Some of his teammates were already in the room when Hart arrived with two other players, Alex Formenton and Rob Thomas, he said. They had walked together from a bar and Hart agreed he must have discussed the text with Formenton at some point, though he couldn’t remember what was said.

His first memory of the woman is seeing her masturbating while naked on a sheet on the floor of the room, he said, and he doesn’t remember speaking to her or asking the others in the room any questions before then.

Hart previously said that before committing to the sexual encounter, he wanted to assess the situation in the room and make sure everything was consensual.

“But you can’t tell us whether you actually did any of that assessing when you first got into the room, can you?” Cunningham asked. “I’m not sure, I can’t remember,” Hart said in response.

Hart, McLeod, Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault, and McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

The events at the centre of the trial took place as many of the team’s members were in London for a series of Hockey Canada events celebrating their victory at that year’s championship.

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 complainant, who was 20 at the time and cannot be identified under a publication ban, met several of the players at a bar where they had gone to continue celebrating after a Hockey Canada gala, court heard. She left with McLeod and they had sex in his hotel room, an encounter that is not part of the trial.

She was drunk and naked when men she didn’t know started coming into the room, she said. The woman testified that no one physically forced her to do anything but she felt she had no choice but to go along as the men discussed sex acts they wanted her to perform.

Her mind “shut down,” she said, and she engaged in sexual acts while on “autopilot.”

The defence has suggested she was the one initiating the sexual activity, at times taunting the players to engage in sexual acts with her.

Hart began laying out his account of that night on Thursday after the Crown finished presenting its evidence in the case.

He was drunk when he arrived at the hotel and has several gaps in his memory, he said, adding he can’t remember the exact order in which events played out.

He didn’t learn the complainant’s name until days later, he said, and can’t remember what happened between his arrival in the room and when she began masturbating on the floor.

Asked whether it was possible that someone had asked or told the woman to touch herself, Hart said he didn’t remember but didn’t believe that was possible.

Hart said he was excited when the woman asked him and some of his teammates for sex, and he asked her for oral sex because he didn’t want to have intercourse.

He said it was consensual and he didn’t touch the woman’s body during the act, which lasted 30 to 60 seconds.

A lawyer representing McLeod has said he isn’t calling any evidence. It is not yet known whether any of the other players will testify.

by Canadian Press

Crown cross-examines one of five hockey players accused of sexual assault

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