LONDON, Ont.— The complainant in the high-profile case of five professional hockey players accused of sexual assault told the jury Friday she was drunk, mentally “all over the place,” and not fully aware of her surroundings in a “very crowded and very chaotic” bar the night she met player Michael McLeod.
Had she not been so impaired by alcohol — reporting blurry vision and trouble walking — she likely would not have agreed to go back to McLeod’s hotel room where the alleged assaults happened in the early hours of June 19, 2018, the woman said in her highly anticipated testimony.
“I’m someone who has a bit of a hard time saying ‘no,’ I don’t like upsetting others, and I think when I’m drunk, that really shows,” she testified. “I know if I hadn’t been drunk or been in that position, that wouldn’t have been something I would have done, but I did feel OK going with him at that point.”
McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart and Cal Foote have each pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the then-20-year-old woman in a room at the Delta Armouries hotel. The Crown alleges that after meeting the complainant at Jack’s Bar and having consensual sex, McLeod texted his teammates about a “three-way” and as many as 10 men filed into the standard-sized hotel room throughout the night. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to a second charge of being a party to a sexual assault, for allegedly encouraging his teammates to have sex with the woman when he knew she wasn’t consenting.
The complainant’s identity is covered by a standard publication ban.
The players, who now range in age from 25 to 27, were members of Canada’s 2018 world junior championship team, and were in London at the time of the alleged incident to attend the Hockey Canada Foundation’s annual Gala & Golf fundraising event and to receive their rings for winning the championship. All but Formenton were playing in the NHL at the time of their arrests in January 2024.
Members of the team, circled, line up to enter Jack’s Bar in London, Ont., late on the night of June 18-19, 2018.
Ontario Superior Court exhibitNow 27, the woman began testifying Friday afternoon, appearing via CCTV while seated at a desk in a different room at the London courthouse; the background behind Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham was blurred on camera as she asked the complainant questions from the courtroom.
Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia told the jury that witnesses can testify in different ways, that testifying by CCTV is not unusual, and that jurors were to take nothing from it. Each accused man watched the complainant testify on their own TV screen, seated at separate tables with their legal teams.
The complainant had gone to Jack’s on the evening of June 18, 2018, with some co-workers and she had two Jagerbombs — a shot of Jagermeister dropped in Red Bull energy drink — shortly after arriving. She said she met an older man who introduced her to another man later identified as McLeod, with whom she drank more shots and danced.
“There was a point that (the man) was starting to really talk up Mikey, making comments that he’s a really good guy, and to just kind of take care of him,” the complainant testified.
“I think he was just trying to make Mikey sound like a good guy and make it seem like someone I should kind of pursue that night, made it seem like someone that you would want to be with.”
‘It was all consensual,’ alleged victim in Canada world junior hockey sex assault case said on video
Prosecutors intend to show that the woman was complying because she was surrounded by large men
In total, she said she believes she had one vodka soda, a beer and at least eight shots, mostly Jagerbombs, at the bar, as well as two coolers at home earlier in the evening. Most of the alcohol she drank at Jack’s would have been purchased by McLeod or his friends, whom she soon pieced together were hockey players, she said.
“I definitely feel like my inhibitions were lowered the more I drank,” she testified. “Mentally, I felt just all over the place. Just the dancefloor and the loud music, it was very crowded and very chaotic. I just kind of felt like I was in the mix of all of that and not feeling very aware.”
On the dance floor with McLeod and his friends, the woman testified it felt “uncomfortable” and “claustrophobic” as “they kept kind of taking turns dancing with me, everyone really close together, I was feeling kind of sandwiched in.” In the video, a man can be seen on surveillance footage pulling the woman’s ponytail, while another lifts her up off the floor.
Cunningham showed her a cellphone video taken by one of the players, showing some of the men and the complainant dancing.
“I thought I looked really intoxicated,” she said after watching the video, noting her smile but closed eyes.
“I don’t seem aware there’s even a video being taken.”
She said some of the men would try to move her hand toward their crotch areas.
“It did feel a little off but again, with being how drunk I was, I just tried not to think anything of it and go along with it,” she testified.
“I know outwardly it probably appeared as if it was alright and I was just having fun, but it did strike me as odd.”
The complainant noted that other bar surveillance footage shows her kissing McLeod, as she told the court that she was feeling “fine” about him. “I was attracted to him. He seemed interested in me.”
Michael McLeod and the complainant, circled, at rear, lean against a bar inside Jack’s Bar on the night of June 18-19, 2018.
Ontario Superior Court exhibitShe felt McLeod “assumed” throughout the night that the pair would end up back at his hotel room, she testified. She said she tried to lose him by going to the bathroom at Jack’s, but that McLeod insisted on walking her there and waiting for her.
“So at that point, I felt I had tried a little bit to think straight, but it was difficult with a lot of alcohol and kind of that pressure and I just kind of accepted that we’d been close all night that we’ll just go home, that’s fine, we’ll go to the hotel,” she testified.
The court was shown surveillance footage of the pair leaving Jack’s before 2 a.m., with the complainant walking down the stairs behind McLeod. The woman testified she felt like she was trying to maintain her balance.
Credit: Ontario Superior Court exhibit
The complainant did not start testifying Friday about the alleged incidents that took place in McLeod’s hotel room, which are the focus of the trial. She will continue her testimony Monday morning.
In her opening statement to the jury this week, Crown attorney Heather Donkers alleged McLeod had vaginal intercourse with the complainant a second time; Formenton engaged in intercourse as well, but in the hotel room bathroom; McLeod, Hart and Dubé obtained oral sex; Dubé slapped the complainant’s naked buttocks; and Foote did the “splits” over the woman while she lay on the ground, “grazing his genitals over her face.”
All without her consent, the Crown alleges.
Other players testify
Jurors were also offered very brief glimpses into the hotel room from former world junior team members Boris Katchouk and Taylor Raddysh earlier on Friday, as protesters stood outside the courthouse with signs reading “Believe survivors” and “Justice for survivors.”
Boris Katchouk, seen here with theTampa Bay Lightning in a 2021 file photo.
Bruce Bennett Getty ImagesKatchouk, who now plays for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the American Hockey League, testified that when he returned to the hotel that night, he was stopped by McLeod who invited him into his room. Once inside, Katchouk testified that he saw a woman on the bed, under the sheets. He said that McLeod asked him if he would like a “gummer” from the woman, Katchouk testified Friday via Zoom.
“It is a blowjob,” Katchouk clarified under questioning by Cunningham.
He considered the offer to be a bit of a joke and made nothing of it, he said.
“I had a girlfriend at the time so there was nothing for me to really think about,” he testified.
Katchouk confirmed under cross-examination by McLeod’s lawyer David Humphrey that the woman did not seem upset or appear to react in a negative way when McLeod made the offer.
Katchouk said he was in the room for about two minutes, and was very briefly alone with the woman when McLeod left to get Raddysh. Katchouk said the woman asked him for a bite of his slice of pizza he had brought with him. He agreed under cross-examination by Humphrey that the woman had a “flirty” demeanour and was “playfully” asking him for a bite.
Once McLeod returned to the room with Raddysh, Katchouk testified there was only brief conversation between the three men before Raddysh said something like: “Hey Bo, let’s get out of here,” and they did.
A text exchange between Michael McLeod and Taylor Raddysh on June 19, 2018.
Ontario Superior Court exhibitRaddysh, who now plays with the Washington Capitals, testified via Zoom that he remembers very little about the events of June 18-19, 2018, other than entering McLeod’s room for a “very short time” and seeing Katchouk and the woman on the bed.
Foote’s lawyer, Julianna Greenspan, pointed out during cross-examination that the complainant told police she was walking around in the room naked when Raddysh was there; he testified she was not.
The jury was also shown a text McLeod sent Raddysh at 2:15 a.m. on June 19 about coming to his room for a “gummer,” but Raddysh never replied and testified he doesn’t recall when he first saw that text.
On Friday, he read into the record some of the answers he gave to a 2018 investigation into the matter, which included hearing a lot of “talking and chattering and hooting and hollering” in McLeod’s room next to his, as he tried to go to sleep in the early morning of June 19 after returning from McLeod’s room.
