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What was she saying?
- We have found sufficient grounds to charge
five adult males with sexual assault.
- Five former Canadian World Junior hockey players
are accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2018.
This is a pretty unique case
because hockey has such a special place
in Canadian society.
- This trial is about consent.
- This was her chance to tell her story
and to hold people accountable for what happened in that night.
- One pulls her ponytail and another picks her up.
And you could see they're all sort of sharing her
in that moment.
- I can tell you right now, there's not one single woman
that I know that would want
to be in a room in that situation.
- At one point, Brett Howden texts Taylor Raddysh,
"Dude, I'm so happy I left when all the shit went down."
My job is to report on facts
that I see, and so, the facts are unbelievable.
Well, I'm in London because tomorrow,
five players go on trial for sexual assault.
We are gonna be here Monday to Friday, every day,
for the next couple months, just trying to do our best
to portray it accurately and fairly.
And then, of course,
we'll be here for the verdict.
It certainly, it's interesting that this case is unfolding
in London because this is like
any Hockey Town, Canada. Right?
It's a town where the London Knights
are such a high profile and powerful local organization,
with so much influence.
You see that when you, you know, walk downtown,
in the moments before a playoff game.
Like, the London Knights are perennial winners
in the Ontario Hockey League.
And again, the fact that the trial is happening here,
you could make an argument that, in a way, like,
the culture of junior hockey
is just as much on trial here as the five players are.
For 100 years,
as long as hockey's been around,
it has been something that Canadians worship.
In a lot of ways, it's like the church itself.
And these young players who come through
junior hockey teams live a life of privilege.
They often have not been held accountable.
And people who work in the game
will say this happens everywhere in society,
not just hockey. However, it does feel like
there's a lot of incidents in hockey.
- If I had a daughter,
I would never let her date a hockey player.
In early 2021, I remember reading a story
that was published by a radio station in Chicago.
And the story detailed how a player who had been
with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010,
alleged that he was sexually assaulted
by one of his coaches on that team.
So, I wound up calling the radio station and said,
"Hey, I'd like to do a follow on your story.
I'd like to see this document, this lawsuit."
And they sent it to me.
And so, throughout the course of that summer,
I wound up doing almost 50 stories on this case.
And the story turned out to be one
where it was clear the Blackhawks wanted to turn
a blind eye to this allegation.
They did not want to investigate.
All the players in the locker-room
knew it was happening.
And that player, who is Kyle Beach,
came on TSN and did an interview with us
that ran almost 28 minutes.
- I am a survivor.
And I know I'm not alone.
And I buried this for 10 years, 11 years.
And it's destroyed me from the inside out.
And I hope that this entire process
can make a systematic change
to make sure this never happens again.
- The day after we did that interview with Kyle Beach,
my emails and my direct messages
started blowing up with other people
wanting to tell their stories.
And in the four years since we did that interview
with Kyle Beach, a week has not gone by
that I have not received tips
about abuse and harassment in Canadian sports.
Well, this case started when I was working on a soccer,
and I was zipping around in Belgrade, scouting locations.
And my phone rang.
I didn't know who the caller was.
And so, I didn't pick it up, and they, you know, rang again,
and rang again and rang again, and finally I answered it.
And the person told me
I need to get to London, Ontario,
and pull this file,
because it was really important to sports in Canada
and to the future of Canadian hockey,
and I needed to know what was going on.
And so I did.
And I remember being shocked by what I was reading,
and forwarding it to my teammates at TSN,
basically saying, "Brace yourself.
The stuff that's in this lawsuit is really bad."
A woman, who is referred to in court documents as E.M.,
had filed a $3.5 million lawsuit
against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League,
and eight players who were referred to as John Does.
And the allegations in that lawsuit were horrible,
outlining what she said was a sexual assault
that took place in a hotel, here in London,
over the course of one evening
and into early morning in June 2018
after a golf and gala event that Hockey Canada hosted.
In a statement released last night,
Hockey Canada said, "As soon as it became aware
of this matter in 2018,
it contacted local police authorities to inform them."
- I think the initial police investigation
could be best described as rudimentary.
I'm not aware of any cell phones being seized
at that point, any court orders, any searches,
any really in-depth inquiry.
I think it was more of taking E.M.'s statements
and almost placating her with some activity.
- There was 20 players on that team,
and the police closed their investigation
after interviewing four.
Two of them in person.
Well, it was by February 2019,
the police made the call there'd be no charges laid.
And there was a period of sort of reflection
and regression. And ultimately,
E.M. reappeared and wanted to seek accountability.
The primary route, my recommendation,
is through lawsuit.
And she voluntarily took a polygraph
with respect to her statement of what happened that night,
and passed it.
- The polygraph process takes about
two-and-a-half to three hours.
It's at 90 to 95% accurate.
I was involved initially on the civil side.
Did a polygraph for the victim, E.M.
I read the synopsis, prepared the questions.
Based on that, I went to their office,
conducted the test there.
I came to the conclusion that...
that she was being truthful.
- Her result was neither deceptive nor unreliable.
It was well into the reliable, truthful zone.
- Hockey Canada came on pretty strong and fast
and resolved the case, I think, within 34 days.
So, a civil lawsuit was the last option,
not the first.
And I think that should be crystal clear.
E.M. wanted this very private,
and I was a little surprised at how quick it leaked out.
That reporting really jarred Canadians.
If you remember, it led to a parliamentary hearing.
It led to complete upheaval of Hockey Canada,
where some of the most senior members
of that organization were forced out.
And there was outrage when Canadians learned
that Hockey Canada had maintained this slush fund
to pay off sexual assault allegations,
which was kept a secret from the Canadian public.
- It settled 21 sexual misconduct claims since 1989,
totalling close to $9 million in compensation.
- The story had broken around May of that year.
So, once that hit the media, I think our service just kind of
wanted to make sure that everything was done
as well as it could have been.
So, the day I was assigned the case,
I reviewed it that morning, and then I called her.
I wanted her to know from me that we were going to be
reopening the investigation.
She was upset.
She said that she thought that this phase
was going to be done. With the civil trial being over,
she thought that she was going to be moving on.
So, I think this was hard for her, yeah.
My assessment was that more could have been done.
I found some gaps in the investigation
that I thought could be filled.
And I thought that there was just more information out there
that could have helped us
come to a more informed conclusion,
if that makes sense.
- We begin with breaking news.
London Police are reopening a criminal investigation
related to the 2018 sexual assault allegations
involving former CHL and World Juniors players.
- I wanted to interview everybody.
'Cause the thing about hockey players
is that teammates talk, right?
So, I knew even if some players
didn't have firsthand knowledge,
I knew not every player was in the room that night,
I just knew there was more information out there, right?
So, obviously, I wanted to know
who was in the room, sort of who did what,
who said what, who saw what?
But I also wanted to know who heard what.
I quickly formed grounds to believe that
a criminal offence had been committed,
and the players and their lawyers
learned about that because they found out
that we had written warrants to obtain certain information.
So, they chose not to cooperate with the investigation,
which is, they're well within the right to do that.
But that did put up some walls for us.
Not long after the event, some players had changed phones.
So whether there was any ill intent,
whether they were doing it for any particular reason,
or maybe, you know, their cell phone plan was up.
We don't know. And then I came up with
my assessment, which was that I did feel
that those five players committed sexual assault
that night, and then I gave it over to the Crown.
And it wasn't until January 2024
that we learned that five of the players involved in this
were going to be charged.
- I want to extend
on behalf of the London Police Service
my sincerest apology to the victim...
to her family...
for the amount of time
that it has taken to reach this point.
- Rick Westhead, he uncovered this story
and he stayed on this story.
And I think he gets a lot of credit for breaking the story,
and not enough for just being dogged
and seeing it through.
It's a good lesson to all of us
that the hard stories
are the ones that need to be told.
- Journalism has taken some punches in recent years,
right? The...
The public trust of what we do
has never been lower.
There's disinformation everywhere.
There's social media pressures that,
where some of them are self-inflicted,
where people feel like they have to chase retweets and likes,
and follower counts, and you know,
do things for the algorithm.
But...
I think that when you look at stories
that take a real investment of resources and time,
and that's this story, this has taken a long time
and a lot of resources,
there's a public good in this.
And the public is served by having media
that do take their time,
and that are invested in doing journalism,
and that are committed to holding
powerful organizations accountable
and speaking truth to power.
It's still important.
First one here.
You want to be in the courtroom because...
what we do as journalists is more than write down
what people say, it's observing.
It's watching the mannerisms of jurors.
It's watching how they respond to testimony.
It's watching body language.
The judges, the defendants,
are they sitting up straight in their chairs?
Are they talking a lot to their lawyers?
Are they taking notes? It's worth getting up early for,
for sure, to make sure that you're going to be able
to document that in person.
- It's really a unique case
as it relates to sexual assault cases
and the impact on communities.
- The Crown Attorney on this case,
Meaghan Cunningham, is the chair of a sexual violence group
for the province of Ontario.
The Defence lawyers in this case
are the best lawyers in the province
when it comes to defending these types of cases.
So, this is like the best of the best in the legal world.
It's going to be a nuanced, heavyweight fight.
The standard of proof for a criminal sexual assault trial
is really high. This is a jury trial,
and so, that means that for these players
to be convicted,
each of those 12 jurors is going to have to believe
that this case has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
- To be crystal clear, there's no money in this
for E.M., her civil case is done and gone.
There's no ability to re-sue.
The players and the leagues and everything are all
signed off. So, this is strictly a criminal prosecution
with no ulterior motive,
and I think that people need to understand that.
- You know, she didn't have to prove anything to anybody.
Her family loved her, believed her.
She felt that this was the right thing to do.
She felt she should stand up for others
and for herself,
and hold those responsible accountable.
- It's not how much she drank. It's not what she was wearing.
It's not the type of guy
she wanted to have sex with that night.
This trial is about consent.
And did the accused get consent
from her for each sexual act?
Did she give consent freely and enthusiastically?
And that is what this trial is about.
Yeah, well, we're back in court tomorrow morning
at 9:30, and we will hear the government,
the Crown Prosecutor, you know,
detail the government's case
against these five co-defendants.
Well, today was a very long day.
It was just really interesting to watch, you know,
kind of firsthand how the justice system works.
Today was also interesting because it was the first time
that we'd actually seen all of these five
hockey players, co-defendants,
in a courtroom together at the same time.
And so, we saw Michael McLeod come in,
you know, a former prospect with the New Jersey Devils.
You know, we saw Carter Hart come in,
the goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers,
not too long ago. There was Dillon Dubé,
who was the captain of that 2018 World Juniors team
for Canada and a player in the Calgary Flames system.
And then you had Cal Foote, you know, another pro prospect.
And Alex Formenton,
who had been a forward with the Ottawa Senators.
So, you know, all those players came in
clean-shaven, wearing dark suits
and white dress shirts,
you know, looking...
looking every bit like the kind of players
that we see walking into hockey rinks
with a cup of coffee before important NHL playoff games.
Pretty striking difference, though,
where they were going today.
It's hard to imagine
what it feels like to know that your,
you know, your freedom is on the line,
that your life's hanging in the balance,
that you could be found guilty of a crime and go to prison.
We've been here before with hockey
and with incidents that shouldn't happen.
And every time something happens that's really bad,
there's a promise like, oh, we've got to make sure
it never happens again.
And then, you know, I wonder if
people really have followed through on these promises
to make change and improve the safety measures?
Because the news cycle moves fast
and people's attention, you know,
shifts to the next thing so quickly.
So, the window to try to affect change
and try to like, convince the federal government,
for instance, to do a better job
at holding sports organizations accountable,
that window is not... not very big.
We're going to meet today with Olivier Dubois.
He's the captain of the Sherbrooke team
in the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League.
And he's going to talk to us about his experiences
playing junior hockey and how he...
is trying to make the game better for young players
that are coming after him.
- Hey. - Good morning. Bon matin.
- How are you? - Nice to see you.
- Yeah.
- How are you today? - Great.
Good. Great, great, you? - Thank you.
- That's my billet house.
- This is the billet house, eh? - Yeah.
It's a big, beautiful place.
- This is where you spend all your time sleeping.
- Yeah. And eating. - And eating.
The two things hockey players do well.
- Yeah, really.
I've played hockey my whole life,
basically, since I was like, two years old.
When I grew up, it was always all about hockey.
And I entered the league when I was 17
in Rouyn-Noranda, and then it's been three years
since I'm in Sherbrooke.
It's hard to describe how difficult that is
when you go away when you're 16 or 17.
Maybe you're not even really shaving yet,
and you're playing with guys who are 20, who are men.
- Yeah, it's... the gap,
it's only four or five years, but at this time of our life,
it's a big difference. When you're 16, 17, you...
you don't know nothing about how the cues work
and how lives work, even.
- Can I ask you a little bit about some of the pressures
that you felt regarding alcohol and girls?
- I didn't drink before, that much.
Um, I was in secondary and didn't have that time.
And I was not a party guy either, so...
But then in Rouyn-Noranda, it was like,
everyone's drunk, so you said, everyone seemed to have fun,
they're drunk, and I'm gonna get drunk too,
to fit with them. So it's, I don't think
it's a, maybe that's...
the pressure you put to yourself just to fit in,
to be accepted as a group.
Maybe that's why the pressure is there for drinking.
- What about the attitudes the players had then
towards young women, towards girls?
- I think it's a big part of our conversation.
When I entered the league, they told me,
you have a girlfriend, no you don't need a girlfriend,
you need to...
to live the life of a hockey QMJ player.
Live the life of everything.
It's the party, the girls, everything.
But with experience, with maturity,
I feel it's stupid because you're here,
we're here to play hockey and to study.
And when you start focusing on girls,
or whatever the outcome of it,
you focus less on working hard,
performing in school and in hockey.
The part about this trial in London
that I was least excited about
was missing hockey with my buddies
and playing on the weekend, too.
So, this is really going to be nice
to get back and skate a little bit.
Oh!
I grew up in a small town, Brockville, Ontario.
Played AAA up until the age of 16,
where I was lucky enough to go to Ridley College and play.
And then I ended up going to school at Acadia University
to do my undergrad, where I joined the Acadia Axemen
for two years.
What are some of the things you've seen
or heard about? - Well, a lot of people
think that hazing and group cohesion are,
it's the same, right? If you get,
or if you're hazing someone, it's adding to group cohesion,
which is not true at all. - Right.
- There's a complete difference between team building
and hazing. And a lot of players, I feel,
put themselves in these situations,
or agree to get hazed because they just want
to be part of the team, right?
Because players, what they fear the most
is not being part of the group. Yes, exactly.
- What have you seen that way in terms of the guys
that you've played with, how they treat women,
how they deal with women?
- You know, people shrug it off
as locker-room talk or just boys being boys or...
- What kind of talk? - Just about, like,
how many girls you've been with.
Or, you know, like,
did you have sex on the weekend?
Or did you take that girl home from the bar?
Um, and I think that's just so normalized that,
like, people don't actually, like, really, like,
take a second and think back to, like, you know,
we're, you know, degrading and objectifying women.
And then I think it affects, you know, players later on
after they're done hockey, like, how they socialize
with women outside of, you know, the hockey rink.
- Have you heard, like, in the context of talking
about women, this phrase, like, "the kill count",
referring to how many women somebody's slept with?
- Yeah, that's a large part of the game.
Is, it's almost like a hierarchy, right?
The more girls you slept with,
the more kind of respect you get,
which is just insane to think about.
Like, that's kind of like how it runs.
People don't think that it's actually something,
like a cause for concern.
If we don't talk about it, then nothing's going to change,
and we're going to continue to, you know,
see these sexual assault allegations, these hazing,
these abuse charges.
- Just days after it started,
an Ontario judge declared a mistrial.
The Crown made their opening statement,
and it was, I thought, like, a very strong opening statement.
And then we were all dismissed for lunch.
And there's, you know, there's limited options
you can go to for lunch.
But there's like, this crowded marketplace.
When we came back from lunch,
the judge said something to the effect of,
something happened at the lunch break
that we're going to need to address.
- You know, one of the lawyers bumped into a juror
at a market that's right around the corner from the courthouse
over the lunch hour, and they had some sort
of conversation, and then that blew up.
- She was behind the attorney in line.
The attorney turns to her
and says something to the effect of,
"There's a lot of head nodding this morning."
And so anyways, this juror tells her friend on the jury,
That juror is like, "Wow, that doesn't sound proper."
- The judge determined that the jury pool
had been tainted because they had shared
with one another what these lawyers
allegedly did in the market.
I just think it goes to show how easily a jury pool
can be tainted or a juror can have the wrong impression.
- The woman at the centre of a high-profile trial
of five former World Junior hockey players
testified today about the night in 2018
when she says she was sexually assaulted.
- Her first couple of days were incredibly compelling,
and I found her to be a very credible witness.
And part of the reason I feel that way
is I was surprised with how upfront and transparent
she was about what she did not know
and what she did not remember.
She was very forthright about saying,
"I don't know who that was."
"I'm not sure about that." "I don't recall."
- She just wanted to get her story out there,
her truth out there, which I know
Justice Carroccia didn't like, but um...
We didn't know what to expect. You never know what to expect
from a victim when it comes to testifying.
But, yeah, she blew me away.
- Well, this is downtown London. This is Richmond Street.
And on the night of June 18th, 2018,
Hockey Canada gathered here with members of Canada's
2018 World Junior team
to celebrate their gold medal
and to give the players championship rings.
When the ceremony was over,
the players went back to the hotel
and then went out to party.
So, the players came here
to Jack's Bar across the street.
There was a call made ahead of time
so they wouldn't have to wait on line.
So, but the Team Canada players came in,
skipped the line, and went right in.
So, the surveillance video footage shows that
they got here around 11:30,
roughly the same time that E.M. arrived
in the bar with her friends.
- You know, this isn't some fan of hockey at any level.
It's really just coincidence that these are the people
that, you know, she ran into, or they ran into her.
- She was going out dancing with some of her colleagues,
new workers. She was feeling a little bit nervous.
So, she said she had two Mike's Hard Lemonade at home.
And then when she got here,
was pretty aggressive with her drinking.
- I mean, it gave us an idea of how many drinks E.M. had,
and it also, it corroborated a lot of what she told us.
The surveillance video shows that the players
were dancing with E.M.,
you know, on a very crowded, packed dance floor.
- There's this particularly haunting footage
where she sort of ping-pongs between the different men.
They're circling her on the dance floor.
One pulls her ponytail, another slaps her buttocks,
and another picks her up. And you could see
they're all sort of sharing her in that moment.
It's like, you know, sharks gathering a seal
to kind of share amongst themselves.
- The way in which they circled E.M. at the bar
and circled her on the dance floor,
and there was just something,
I'm going to say, primal about that.
There was pack behaviour.
That's what I want to call it, pack behaviour.
I mean, she was outnumbered.
- We basically got assigned by our editor.
He was like, "I want you to go to London,
talk to as many people as you can.
I want you to recreate what that weekend looked like."
We found another woman that encountered that group
that night at the bar,
talking about her experience
from Jack's that night and encountering this big group.
Them being pretty aggressive in sort of like, you know,
trying to glom onto her,
or trying to, you know, make advances toward her.
There was one particular player
that he kept kind of trying to pass her off
to a bunch of different teammates.
Like, it became clear to her at some point
that he was not just interested
in having some sort of interaction with her.
He clearly wanted her to be interacting
with his teammates as well.
And when he asked her to go home that night,
he asked her to go home with them.
And so, that has always struck me
because there are a lot of similarities
between what she told us
and what E.M. recounts from that night.
And so, for me, that was very impactful.
- The defence was arguing that E.M. had every opportunity
to leave Jack's Bar with her friends,
and she made the choice to stay and drink and party with them.
And I don't think she denies that,
because E.M. never denied in this case
that she willingly left Jack's Bar
and went with Michael McLeod,
and that if she wasn't so drunk,
she wouldn't have. But she did,
and she went and had consensual sex with Michael McLeod.
And after that is when she says everything changed.
- After they have sex,
she goes into the bathroom to clean herself up.
And she says when she comes out of the bathroom,
more men are in the room, and she's shocked.
- You know, he secretly sent a text message
to his teammates asking who was up for a three-way.
- Then Carter Hart texts, like,
I think five minutes later, "I'm in."
- His lawyer suggests that wasn't the case.
That she actually said,
why don't you invite all of your--
Why don't you invite all of your friends back here
for a wild time?
So, you know, it's interesting
because one of the last bits of evidence that we did see
in the case was an interview that Michael McLeod did
with London Police in late 2018.
In that interview, when he's told
about what the allegation is against him,
he never says E.M. asked me
to invite my whole team back here.
And I would think that if you're being called in
and told that you're being accused of sexual assault,
if she had asked for that,
you would have said that 50 times, not just once.
When you guys finish having sex,
what happens from there?
- So in 2018, he does not talk about sending a three-way text.
That doesn't come up. And then in 2022,
he added that...
E.M. wanted him to send the text message.
That he sent it because she asked him to.
So, 2022 was the first time we'd heard that.
- What makes this case interesting is, in 2022,
Hockey Canada reopened its investigation
after the public learned of this,
and after there was public outrage.
The organization said that, you know,
players who didn't participate and cooperate
in the investigation could face mandatory lifetime bans.
And so, at that time, all these players agreed,
Okay, well, we'll cooperate.
And their statements that they gave to Hockey Canada in 2022,
the Crown Attorney in this case says that there was many,
many, many inconsistencies
in what they told Hockey Canada in 2022,
compared to what they told the London Police
four years earlier.
Alex Formenton, who's one of the players who's charged,
in 2022, in his first interview,
he told a Hockey Canada investigator
that he never saw Dillon Dubé slap E.M.
But then four days later,
he asked for another interview.
He admitted that he had not been truthful in his first interview.
He said that Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote
had asked him not to talk about
any of this when he was questioned.
So what happened-- because in the pretrial hearings
in this case, a judge who was overseeing that,
he decided that those statements in 2022 were coerced.
That the players weren't there voluntarily,
that they were only there because they were worried
that they would be banned for life
if they didn't cooperate.
And so, all of those statements from 2022
are not admissible in this trial.
So, E.M. is on the stand
and is cross-examined on all of their--
all of her statements.
But if the players take the stand,
they can't be cross-examined on anything they said in 2022
to Hockey Canada because all of those statements
have been tossed out.
What weighed on my decision to form grounds
that an offence was committed that night was,
were the inconsistencies in the statements,
and that didn't come out in trial
because the 2022 statements were excluded.
And then you had E.M.'s statements in 2018
and, you know, she had a written statement in 2022
that was spoken about in trial as well.
And you just didn't see the same inconsistencies.
Like, none of them were perfect, right?
Nobody tells the same story the exact same way
over seven years.
But I had some real concerns with what some of the players
were saying, sort of to this person,
and what they were saying to that person.
I think it would have been important for...
the trier of fact to hear, hear the different stories
and how the players' versions of events
sort of evolved over the years.
I met Catherine Laroche a couple years ago.
I'd seen her story reported in a French newspaper in Quebec.
And, you know, it really made an impression on me.
This woman who had said she'd been sexually assaulted
by a prominent junior hockey player
who went on to be a star in the National Hockey League.
And, you know, then decided to kind of take charge
of her own story and figured out how to,
you know, start a program educating young players
about what healthy relationships look like.
I was raped at the age of 23.
And like, there was so many stories like of,
"Ah, the guys took GHB
because alcohol makes them gain weight.
So, you took the wrong water bottle.
You slept with that guy."
And that's when I was like, "What? Who?"
I didn't even know who he was.
I think I said hi, but I, like,
I wasn't in flirt mode or anything.
So, I called him, though.
Like, I wanted to know, we had a sexual relation.
And he's like, "Yeah, you liked it."
I was like, "Okay, but they said that you found me unconscious."
He's like, "Yeah, at one point you said you were gonna be sick,
so, like, I, I took off and you went into the bathroom."
He's like, "Can you just please not talk about that?
Because I'm about to sign with the NHL
and it could mess up my career."
And at that point where I had a low self-esteem
and a very doubtful mind, I said, okay.
When I became a mom in 2018 and 2020,
that's when I decided to go to the police.
And it took a year-and-a-half after I went to the police,
before they told me, "Okay, we're ready
to start questioning the witness."
And when they told me we're ready,
well, I wasn't anymore.
So, I decided, like, instead of going me against him,
I wanted to educate people like him
to prevent people like me getting hurt.
That's my story.
I work with 15-25 right now,
and I'm so hopeful because those guys,
first of all, they're tired of wearing the label
of what comes with being a hockey player.
And they are so open-minded.
Repressing, that's what humans
are used to do. And to repress and put that
behind without really looking
to the real raw and shadowy parts,
it will go again. We have to face the real things.
We have to see them.
There's a journalist who used
to work with 60 Minutes. He's passed away.
He covered a lot of like, conflict zones and wars.
His name was Bob Simon.
And he was killed in a car accident in New York.
And I always liked his line about journalism, which was,
you know, "If it's really important
for you to be popular,
then this is the wrong career choice."
So, and that's, that's, that's true.
You know, we do this because it matters.
We do it because the reporting is in the public interest.
And... and journalism is like
a foundation of our democracy, right?
It's our job as journalists to...
to watch the people who are in power in government
and hold them accountable for what they're doing.
One of the key pieces of evidence that we heard
both pretty early and pretty often
is this group text invitation
that Mike McLeod makes to his teammates of,
"I've got a girl in the room
who wants to have a three-way. Mikey."
- I think regardless of whether or not
you think these guys are innocent,
it's disgusting to read these text messages.
It's really quite horrifying.
There's something about the way in which they talk
about it so casually. It seems like something
they're used to doing. They're inviting one another.
- There was 19 players in that group chat.
It did stand out to me that not one person thought like,
hey, wait a second, are you serious?
You know, not one person sort of questioned the text message.
And it just, you know, a three-way text goes out
and within the next hour, two hours, you know,
there's ten guys in the room with E.M.
- There are additional texts from that night.
He texted Taylor Raddysh, asking if he wanted a gummer.
And then ran into Boris Katchouk in the hallway
and asked if he wanted to come in the hotel room for a gummer.
- Which is slang for oral sex.
- Boris Katchouk came back to the room,
and he's not been accused of any wrongdoing.
He's obviously not been charged. But why did you show up?
And he showed up with pizza.
And E.M. was naked in the bed.
And when Boris was asked,
"Did she say anything to you?"
He said, "Yeah, she asked for a bite of my pizza."
And the Crown naturally said,
"Well, did you give her any pizza?"
- He gave a really weird answer, like,
"I don't remember what I said,
but she did not have a bite of pizza."
I found that...
just in really poor taste. No pun intended.
She was good enough to dance with,
she's good enough to party with,
good enough to come back to the room
to see what sort of three-way might be happening,
but not good enough to give a bite of your pizza to?
It was just a moment that was especially dehumanizing,
is what comes to mind for me.
She said after she had sex with Michael McLeod,
other men entered the hotel room.
She testified three men pulled their pants down
for oral sex, as others in the room chanted, "Suck it."
And some allegedly spat on her. Some slapped her buttocks.
Two of the players, she said,
had sex with her in the bathroom.
She testified the men in the room shouted and laughed.
"It was all just a joke to them," she said.
E.M. said she cried at times,
but when she tried to leave,
people would guide her away from the door.
- One of the things that has been debated
or a point of contention is...
how she felt.
And in her words,
she describes feeling,
"Very fearful,
very nervous, very anxious."
- As E.M. testifies, she says they wanted her
to get down on the floor between them,
and she says the hotel floor is dirty.
And that's when they decide to put the sheet down.
So, they put a sheet down, and they all surround her.
At that point, they asked her to masturbate.
I think she complied. And as she described,
they spat on her, and they took turns hitting her.
Some of them made comments about,
it's gross even to say, but they were there
for a golf tournament, so, there were golf balls
and golf clubs around, and they talk about
how many golf balls they could fit up her vagina.
And they also see-- ask whether or not
she could take a full golf club.
- I think when you find yourself in that situation,
you have to make an assessment of,
do I go along with this, or do I resist it?
And if I resist it, how bad could this get?
- And I think something that's really been interesting,
I think people forget when you read about the case,
is these guys are enormous.
They're all at least six feet tall,
or around there. I mean, they're all 200 pounds.
And so, they're more threatening than the average man.
- When you're party to conversations
about people talking about sticking a golf club inside you,
you'd have some concerns about how bad
this could get if things got agitated.
Savard prompted E.M.,
"One of your coping mechanisms on this unusual night
may have been offering sex?"
E.M. replied, "I was not acting like myself."
"You were acting like a porn star?" Savard asked.
"Yes, I feel that was the thing they wanted.
They were trying to recreate a porn scene," E.M. replied.
- You know, when she agreed that she'd taken on
the persona of a porn star, that was jarring to hear.
You know, it really kind of, I think,
started a lot of conversations about what trauma response is
and how people respond
in cases where they're being traumatized.
- She experienced this mind separating from her body.
And we know that to be a trauma response of dissociation.
And so, her testimony was so meaningful
to so many people
because they recognized what she was talking about.
Going back to, like, the idea of trauma response,
you don't always remember things sequentially.
And sometimes you...
can't recall a detail of great import,
but then something seemingly inconsequential
will be very vivid.
The detail that sticks out to me
is that she remembered one guy
sitting on the bed eating chicken wings.
It struck me as one of those details
that I wonder if that has stuck with her?
- The sex assault trial of five former
World Junior hockey players continued
with the cross-examination of the complainant.
- It's the fifth day of cross-examination.
- E.M. still has many more questions to answer
as the marathon cross-examination continues.
- You know, I was talking to a good friend of mine
who's a former sex crimes prosecutor,
and she, like, was gobsmacked
when she heard that she was on the stand for nine days.
She said she had never seen or heard anything like that.
- Seven days of cross-examination,
how can that not be re-traumatizing?
- She had to sit through five defence lawyers
cross-examining her about what happened,
trying to prove that she was wrong.
- Their goal is, I would imagine,
is to discredit her at every level,
to show what she's saying, you can't believe.
- I'm not sure any one of those accused
could sit up there for seven days
and take that kind of hammering.
I had concerns that we weren't going to get
through it, but then there came a point where, you know,
she only got stronger, every single day
after every break.
- And then she gets cross-examined by Dan Brown,
who's very aggressive.
He's trying to end the day with a flourish
where he's saying, like, you know,
"This is all a result of the shame and embarrassment
from the choices you made."
And he tries to end the day and say, like,
"That's all for me, Your Honour."
And she says at some point,
"No, I would like to finish."
And she has the last word.
And she basically, like,
I am not going to get pushed around.
And I am here for a reason.
This is a chance to stick up for myself in a way
that I didn't and I couldn't at the time,
but you are going to hear that now.
And I thought that was a very powerful moment.
I think that there were some rape myths
coming through in some of the questioning of E.M.
And you know, we have case law that says that rape myths
have no place in the courtroom or the judicial system,
but we have yet to see that, I would say. Yeah.
- So notably, they haven't asked her about her sexual history,
though they did bring up that she had
a boyfriend at the time.
That, you could say, is not related to her history.
It's relevant to the case.
They ask her a lot about how much she was drinking.
"Were you really that drunk that you couldn't consent,
but also you must have been too drunk to remember
exactly what happened?"
So, they toe a lot of those lines.
But they ask her a lot about the high heels she was wearing.
"If you were so drunk,
how could you walk in such high heels?"
- I've heard the argument made by men
who probably have not been intoxicated in high heels,
most of them.
Yeah, you see her and McLeod
walk up the stairs through a lobby
and they're gone. You know, they're on camera
for maybe five or six seconds.
No, she doesn't stumble, but it's not a video
that you can draw a ton of conclusion from.
- Every 20-year-old woman, I would imagine, on Earth, like,
is fairly adept at walking in heels,
even after, like, you know, a night of drinking.
Like, I think a lot of college women
are pretty confident in that.
- So, a lot of the guys that I talk to,
especially WHL,
you really have to move far away from that.
All of them say that, yeah, hockey, absolutely love it.
But the challenges
of moving away from home
and trying to be accepted on a team.
You know, you're 16 years old, you're barely shaving.
- Yeah. Mm-hmm. - And your teammates are 20,
and they're like, they're men, right?
- Yeah. - And just trying
to be accepted, it's hard. - Yeah.
- You know, it can be lonely.
A buddy of mine, Justin Davis,
he was drafted Washington Capitals.
He heard this year,
that at a rookie party in Ontario,
there was this game, you guys heard of this game,
"the dick beer"? Where you have to do push--
So, all the first-year players
had to do push-ups, naked,
over a cup of beer.
And their penis would go into the beer
because they had the cup there, right?
And the rookie who did the fewest push-ups
had to drink everyone's beer.
This year, this season.
How can that be happening in 2024
with all the stuff we've read, right?
- Yeah. I don't know.
- My first, like, when I went 16 years old,
in the Junior, like, the veterans, I was a rookie.
So, there was, like,
a thing that we need to eat,
like, a cereal in the ass of someone.
And... yeah. - Okay.
- For the rookie.
- One of my friend also is in prison right now.
- Nicolas Daigle? - Yes.
That's one of my best friends.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- Got the chance to see him.
Had a lot of emotion about it.
We all-- we all did. I mean, it's...
- How does he feel? - Feel terrible.
- Regretful? - Absolutely.
Every day. But it's every--
Every day that we're-- we can't talk to him,
it's a learning experience for him.
He wants to get out and want to move on
and live his life the full as he can.
But if you bring him back in time, you know,
definitely not making the same mistake again.
In Montreal, meeting with Michel Bérubé.
Michel was the prosecutor in a highly publicized case
involving two junior hockey players
who were accused of sexual assault
and who pleaded guilty.
I was thinking about the first time I met you
was in court in Quebec.
I had just come to hear some of the pretrial arguments
in the case with Nicolas Diagle and Massimo Siciliano.
It's interesting, some of the facts that came out
in your case versus the case in London.
And there have been even the other,
there's another case in Quebec recently
with three hockey players.
Noah Corson was 18.
The other two pleaded guilty.
In that case, Noah Corson's lawyer suggested
that he received sex education in hockey locker-rooms.
Do you have any thoughts about what it is about
the culture of hockey that might lead
these young men to make bad choices
and not be the best versions of themselves sometimes?
- Well, that's a very good question.
And the way I would answer this question as a prosecutor
is we encourage victims to come forward
and to speak up.
If we try these cases, the culture might change.
- How much do your teams talk to you
about issues like this, like consent?
Does it ever come up? Do they make you--
Do they make you watch a video? - There's a video from consent.
- The tea? - Every year, the tea.
The tea video. If you're still
struggling with consent,
just imagine instead of initiating sex,
you're making them a cup of tea.
You say, "Hey, would you like a cup of tea?"
And if they say, "No thank you,"
then don't make them tea. At all.
- When it's over,
some guys will talk around, hey,
how can she know what the tea tastes
if she hasn't tasted it? - Really.
- Well, there's-- there's guys walking around
about that. And it's not taken seriously yet enough.
How can that be? Think about all the stories.
Like, you've got not only the one with Victoriaville,
we also have Noah Corson. - Yeah.
- And then you have this case in London.
Like, why do you think these things
like this happen repeatedly?
- Uh, fame.
Uh, you have it too easy.
And most of the time, it's easy to get out of it.
- People look the other way. People make excuses.
Is that what you mean? - Yep. Too easily.
- When you go into hockey, right, like,
you're living a life. You know what I'm saying?
That's why nobody takes it seriously.
You don't take responsibilities or-- on anything.
You don't think as much as you should.
I think that's one big problem that happens a lot.
- It's where there's fame and money that ego gets up.
And when ego gets up, you think you have power
and you think you can do anything you want.
Mixed with group effect because those guys are together.
So, I think people chase all the time, adrenaline,
they chase power, they chase--
Because it helps them feel
something that's missing inside of them.
E.M. also testified she did not recall
participating in two videos
taken from McLeod's phone,
in which she appears to give consent to unspecified acts.
- In 2018, Mr. McLeod
handed those videos over to police,
and E.M. was asked to come back into the station
and showed those videos, and it was the first time
she'd seen them.
She has said that
she does not recall filming any of those videos.
She remarked that, like, she looks pretty different
to herself on those tapes.
That, like, she's speaking kind of erratically
and pretty quickly. Her eyes, she described
as having, like, "crazy eyes" and just
feeling like she looks like a mess.
- When have you ever been asked to film on camera?
"Oh, yeah, this is good. I'm okay with it.
Let's take a selfie and I'll sign off
and say this was all okay."
Like, who's giving them that advice?
Is it kind of known throughout-- amongst them?
"Oh, you should, if you have kind of
an encounter that goes out of control,
you should take a video like this just in case."
It's a bit strange. And it seems by the nature
of the videos that this is something that
they're accustomed to doing.
- If you got consent, do you need to make the video?
Which is after the fact
and not when you're supposed to get a consent.
I didn't rely on them when I was forming my grounds
to determine whether an offence had been committed,
because what mattered was her subjective state of mind
at the time of each act, right?
Was it voluntary? Was she giving that consent at the time?
Um... Not after the fact.
It's interesting, you know, you have so many
reporters in this courtroom
all listening to the same thing.
And nobody catches, I think,
what's a pretty important detail.
In one of these consent videos,
like we already know that E.M. says that
Michael McLeod, throughout the course
of the early morning hours of June 19th,
um...
was badgering her to make a video.
But if you actually pay attention
to what Michael McLeod says,
I haven't seen anybody report this.
So, Michael McLeod actually starts that video off by saying,
"Say it." And then the E.M. says,
"Okay, it was all consensual. Are you recording me?"
And he says, "Yes." And she says, "Okay, good."
And then he says, "What else?"
And she says, "You are so paranoid.
Holy! I enjoyed it, it was fine. It was all consensual.
I'm so sober that's why I can't do this right now."
But hearing his words,
it does make you...
it does seem to give more credibility
to what she's saying, that, you know,
that he was wanting her to do this
throughout the course of the night
and prompting her to do it.
But again, to me,
you have a courtroom full of reporters,
and nobody heard this. Nobody reported on it.
That's interesting.
It's been a crazy couple days.
We go through one mistrial in this case,
and then yesterday,
there's a little bit of momentum in the court
because E.M. is finally done testifying after nine days.
And we hear from Tyler Steenbergen,
a member of Canada's 2018 World Junior team.
He's offering testimony about what he saw
in the hotel room. He saw Dillon Dubé
slap E.M. He saw Cal Foote
do the splits over top of E.M.
And then he testifies that a week later
after this incident, when he learned Hockey Canada
was doing an investigation, Dubé and Foote
both called him and asked him
not to share with investigators
what he'd seen. And very dramatic testimony.
And then we came back from lunch
and the judge drops a bombshell.
She reads this note to the court and the note says...
"...as if they are discussing our appearance.
This is unprofessional and unacceptable."
And so that sets off a firestorm.
And immediately the defence, you know,
you can see the idea forming in their mind already
that they're going to be able to get a mistrial out of this.
And so that's where we are now. We've come back.
The Defence has said that they think that there should be
a mistrial and that this case should move forward
as a judge alone case,
meaning the jury gets dismissed
and the judge decides the guilt or acquittal
of these defendants.
- Did the defence team
observe the jurors
in the same way that I observed some of the jurors,
looking troubled?
In one instance, I believe I saw a juror
physiologically triggered by E.M.'s testimony.
Was that an opportunity to change course?
Did they think that maybe
they had fallen out of favour with the jurors?
- There are some people who are watching this
who believe there's a bias that the judge has shown
towards, in favour of the defence.
I don't know how that would affect her judgment
in terms of rendering a decision based on the law,
but, you know, it's--
I really want to see how this unfolds.
And I know we live in a world of hot takes,
where, what do you think about that?
My job is to report on facts that I see,
and so, the facts are unbelievable.
- One sex assault trial, two juries discharged.
This morning, Justice Maria Carroccia
decided that this trial will proceed
in front of her alone,
out of concern about jury prejudice.
Yesterday, one of the players who testified,
Brett Howden, he's not been charged with anything
or accused of any wrongdoing,
he was being asked a whole bunch of questions
about what happened in June 2018,
you know, in this hotel.
And so many times he would say, "I don't remember."
"I don't know, I don't remember."
So the Crown today argued that Brett Howden
was not being truthful,
that he was feigning this memory loss,
and that it was selective. He was remembering things that,
you know, help these players who are defendants,
the Crown called them his "friends and former teammates",
but he was forgetting things, key details
that he'd talked about previously.
So, now we're having all of this legal argument
over whether or not his past statements
can be introduced and he can be cross-examined on them.
One of the text messages in here,
there was another player on the team
that's also not charged, named Taylor Raddysh.
At one point, Brett Howden texts Taylor Raddysh,
"Dude, I'm so happy I left
when all the shit went down. Haha."
- I think the Crowns kind of went into trial
with one hand tied behind their backs.
And then once that text was excluded
by Justice Carroccia,
I think from then on,
they had both hands tied behind their backs.
- When we think about what the actions
of these other players were in that
room, even the players that weren't charged,
did they do the right thing?
That's going to be for the public to decide.
They don't face any criminal charges, but you know,
I can tell you, as a dad,
I would hope that my sons would act very differently
and would leave that room immediately
and would tell someone.
Would tell somebody that, hey,
there's something going-- An assistant coach,
the front desk, anonymously,
"There's something going on in that room,
and it's not right."
- In London, the sex assault trial of five former
World Junior hockey players continued again today,
with Carter Hart taking to the witness box.
He is the first of the accused to testify on his own behalf.
Carter Hart has testified
if he had seen anything disrespectful
happening in that hotel room,
he would have said something or left.
- Carter Hart testified,
and I've heard people in hockey
suggest that he needed to tell his story that way
to be assured of a path back to the NHL.
- She was chirping them. She was saying,
"Who's going to come and fuck me?" Essentially,
was what they testified to.
I mean, it's interesting because...
it's he said, she said. It's their word against hers,
essentially, right? She says,
"No, that's not something I would have said."
And they say, "You did say that."
She remembers sort of getting lost
when she had to leave.
She realized that she left some jewellery in the room.
She goes back and knocks on the door
and remembered how sort of annoyed that they were,
Formenton and McLeod, that she had come back.
They let her look for her ring.
She didn't find it.
And then she ended up leaving,
and then she's on surveillance video
leaving and getting into her Uber.
Her mom found her in the bathtub, not herself.
Her mom was kind of able to get it out of her
that something happened.
So, her mom initially called London Police,
just seeking advice. And then the next day,
once Michael McLeod, I guess,
had been notified that a complaint had been made,
he looked her up on Instagram
and reached out to her and they had
a brief text conversation.
"I need to talk rn," he wrote.
"You said you were having fun?" He texted her.
"I was really drunk, didn't feel good about it
at all after." She wrote.
"I was ok going home with you,
it was everyone else afterwards that I wasn't expecting.
I just felt like I was being made fun of
and taken advantage of."
McLeod repeatedly pressed her to go to police
to end the investigation.
"What can you do to make this go away?"
- I think he was just trying to get her to withdraw
any complaint that might be made.
- We've heard evidence from four players so far,
and to a degree, all four of them
have had real memory issues
when the players were all texting each other,
you know, trying to decide
how they would respond to a Hockey Canada investigation.
The group chat was created
just from the players in the room.
That came from Dillon Dubé.
I think at the time they genuinely believed
that it was just going to be a Hockey Canada
conduct investigation.
You know, as an investigator,
there's kind of like an ah-ha moment, right?
Because that's what we do as police officers.
We investigate because we want to put
the puzzle pieces together.
So, I think that those text messages
were a lot of the missing puzzle pieces.
You know, they were there since 2018,
and they didn't come out until 2022
when we started asking questions.
It gave a lot of context to what happened that night,
what happened the days following.
The way I read it and the opinion that I formed,
was that they were trying to come up with a story.
They were trying to get on the same page.
- Closing statements in the sexual assault trial
of former World Junior hockey players began today.
The defence teams attacked E.M.,
the Crown's chief witness,
providing Justice Maria Carroccia
with a 30-page document known as an aide memoir,
referencing what it argued were issues
with her credibility and reliability.
I think that the defence
probably feels pretty good about where they're at.
The burden of proof on the prosecutors
is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Did the prosecution make their case? I don't know.
This is her word against the word of these five men.
It's interesting, like, if this was a jury trial still,
we'd probably be waiting for four or five days, you know,
sitting in the courthouse, just waiting for a verdict.
And then the jury would come out and say guilty or not guilty
for each of the players,
and we'd never understand why they reached that decision,
because jurors are not allowed to talk about their verdicts.
But because of how crazy this trial has been
because it's now a trial by a judge alone,
it's different.
The judge will reserve her decision,
and then we'll all be, you know,
sent a notice to come back on a particular day
for the reading of the verdict.
How do we change the culture
when forever,
it's been one where you have to fit in?
- Team spirit is really important,
how the coaches are, how the...
the player or the veterans are.
Just about being to accept everyone, whatever they are.
If you don't want to drink, don't drink.
If you're gay, you're gay. There's no worry about it.
- If you think that people like Kyle Beach
don't deserve a voice, then we're not on the same page.
- A thousand percent. - You know, if you think
that Hockey Canada should have this fund
to pay off sexual assault allegations
and keep that secret from the Canadian public...
- Yep. - ...we're not on the same page.
- Yep. I totally agree.
My dad always says, "If someone's, like,
disagreeing with you, you're doing something right", right?
Because, you know, people don't want change.
And especially in hockey, change is hard because,
again, we're so protective over the game, right?
- What would your message be to young players coming up
when it comes to how to treat younger teammates?
How to deal with girls? Like, girls, obviously
like being around you guys
because of the celebrity you have,
because you play junior hockey.
- But it's okay to have fun,
but there's also a limit that, yes,
you want a career, you want to be--
you got to grow as a man,
not just the kid growing up.
It's, as soon as you get in the league, at 16, at 17,
whether at 18, you're in big shoes to fill.
I'm curious, one of the things that, again,
a lot of these dozens of players have told me
when I've interviewed them is, when I say,
"Well, why don't you speak up and why don't you say something?
When you, you know, when there's like,
hazing or issues like this,
why not say something?"
And almost every player is like,
"We can't do that. If you speak up, you're done."
- I think it's hard because we're a big family,
so we're all like brothers.
But if you quit that mentality to say something, it's hard.
- Well, what if, you know,
the rest don't see it the way you see it?
Then you're by yourself a little bit.
Even though you should be the one talking,
it's the right thing to do,
then you get the fear of rejection, right?
- What's happened to the image of hockey
over the last couple of years?
I think of, yeah, like,
what's happened to it across our country?
- It changed. Because some people
did some bad thing,
like, they think everybody's like that, but...
it's not the true. Like, there are some good guys
in hockey, like, a lot of good guys.
- When you're saying, "That's how people see us",
how do you know that?
Do people actually say this to you in person?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Yeah, like, I've heard that. - Honestly?
- Yeah, but it's well known that everybody thinks,
like, pretty much always bad about hockey player.
And even in life, like, you're at the bar
and everything, like, a girl say,
"Oh, you're a fucking hockey player", and like...
- They're all the same. - Yeah.
- That's the same thing every time.
Hockey players, all the same.
But no, we're all humans.
At the end of the day, it's...
it could happen to anyone. But we're hockey players,
and it's all in the media most of the time, so...
All right, gentlemen. Good morning.
Great workout at the gym.
What we're going to work on today is some Edgeboss.
Lucas is here. Welcome back, Lucas.
We're going to work on some hands,
some quick feet. Let's go.
My name is Jim Thomson.
I'm the owner of the Aurora Tiger Junior A
Hockey Team of the OJHL.
My happy place is hockey.
It's my life. I've done it since I was six years old.
Getting to work with these young men
and being in the gym every day with them,
being on the ice every day with them,
I love it. I'll love it till--
I'll do this until I can't do it anymore.
We have an obligation to these young athletes
to teach them the right culture.
Give them a great foundation
to get on with a healthy lifestyle.
And that's far above winning.
And what I want to happen here
is what my coaches, what my general manager,
what my assistant GM, my trainers, everybody
has to be part of. And if they don't,
they can't work here.
And that's just the bottom line
because you entrust your son to be here.
My job as the owner
is to make sure that he's taken care of like my own kids.
Today, this dressing room is open conversation in Aurora.
My leadership group here, there's nothing hidden.
If there's something going on,
I want to know about it, or the coaches or the GM
have to know about it.
Some players thought they could beat it.
No matter how good they were,
I got them out because they're not going to break my culture.
What I want to see more of,
"That's wrong. You guys stop it."
That's, instead of just turning a blind eye to say,
I'm out of here, that's what I want to see.
I want to see the leadership's group say, you know,
"What the hell are you doing? Stop that nonsense."
That's where we gotta get to.
Less than one percent of the players make the NHL.
So the 99% that don't,
what kind of journey and what kind of experience
do they have? What are they getting out of it?
You know, I have that tattoo there,
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
You know, that's it. We're in a world
where you can be anything, be kind.
Kindness matters, right?
I wonder, how would that incident in London
have been different if one of those guys
walking into that room
and taking in that scene
where there's ten guys and one woman,
what would have happened if one of those guys had said,
"This doesn't feel right?" "Let's get her a taxi."
How would the last seven years
have been different for them? For E.M.?
I wonder about that.
Well, here we go.
- It does not matter
what happens in that courtroom today.
It's really about the community
that's come together and showing women
that they are believed
and that there's community behind them.
And I'm hopeful that that's the messaging
that sticks from all of this.
- What do we want? - Justice!
- When do we want it? - Now!
- I'm a survivor as well.
And the whole reason I came was to show her that it matters.
And she can face five defence attorneys.
We can face one.
What do we want? Justice!
- When do we want it? - Now!
- What do we want? - Justice!
- When do we want it? - Now!
- What do we want? - Justice!
- This trial has been a real wake-up call
for hockey culture in Canada,
and it really sends a message to the public
and to the community of London
that this means a lot to us.
- It's definitely a pivotal moment,
regardless of the outcome.
We're not going to be quiet about it, that's for sure.
- Five former World Junior hockey players
at the centre of a high-profile sexual assault trial
are now free and clear, all of them found not guilty.
- The judge saying she found the complainant's allegations
against the men lacked credibility.
This case started out,
it certainly was a roller coaster
with a mistrial, with the jury dismissed,
you know, moving ahead as a judge alone.
The lawyers I talked to who are experts
say they've never seen anything like this before,
but here we are. And so, we trust
the judge's decision, and the players are not guilty.
- They're all not guilty.
She can't find that consent was vitiated
on any of the counts,
and she didn't find E.M. reliable or credible.
It's not an easy day. It's a pretty disappointing day,
but also not surprising.
Yeah.
I, uh... sorry.
Um...
I didn't think I was going to cry.
Um...
I wanted to get her the right answer
because I didn't think she got it in 2018.
So, that was always, um...
That was my goal throughout the whole investigation.
Um...
And then my job kind of,
I understood that my job came to an end
once I kind of handed it over to the Crowns.
It took an emotional toll,
just watching everything she had to go through.
It took a lot out of me, my family.
But I wouldn't have done it differently.
And it was honestly an honour to work for her on this case.
- Whenever I've given advice to complainants,
I always tell them,
there's no guarantees about the outcome,
and you have to be prepared for that.
Her purpose, which was always at the forefront of her mind,
was to stand up for herself
and for others who have had similar experiences.
She felt there needed to be accountability,
but her choice to testify came at a great personal cost.
When a person summons the courage
to disclose their story,
the worst possible outcome is to feel disbelieved.
- Instead of pursuing restorative justice,
the Crown forced a distressing
and unnecessary trial
to the detriment
of Mr. Hart, his co-defendants,
the complainant,
and the Canadian public.
- Rick, were you in fact in the courtroom today?
Yeah, I was sitting there.
Like, the judge gave a bit of a spoiler
by saying right off the bat
that she didn't find E.M.,
the complainant's, testimony, to be credible or reliable.
And as soon as she said that, you could hear audible gasps
from the section of the public gallery
where the players' families were.
Just because the judge finds that something criminal
did not happen in that room,
it does not mean that players
didn't say and do things that were depraved.
- Acquittals are not the same as innocence,
and I don't think acquittals
will necessarily lead to absolution.
- People are saying, "No, I believe her."
You know, I've seen TikTok videos even
where people are like, "No, I lived in a hockey town,
and I believe her.
That's exactly what the culture was like."
- I hope that people speak up
and say, this is too much.
We shouldn't have to be
so afraid of the system to seek justice.
- By coming forward, you're protecting others.
I always suggest and emphasize the power...
...of that knock
of the policeman on the perpetrator's door.
That's a warning shot that may really change their ways.
It's going to make them think twice.
It's going to really, you know,
change the game for that individual.
- I guess in my line of work,
I generally find that, um...
courage is contagious
and that it will be impossible for her
to understand
the impact that she will make
on others who are considering to come forward.
- We are so proud and happy
that you were able to put on a face
and go and do it. And like, it means the world
to people that you don't even know
or will never meet. So, thank you so much.
- You have changed us.
We believe you. And we are with you.
- Honestly, I couldn't speak up and thank you
for being so brave and speaking up.
And I wish you healing along the way.
- Keep aligning in your truth
and keep thinking that your win is yours and nobody else's.
- And I think what you're doing
needs to be done, and I think this is the start
of some real change.
We will not be victimized!
- I want you to...
pass the baton now to us,
and let us... let us continue this fight.
And just know that nothing...
nothing that you did will be done in vain.
And I think that you... you deserve peace now,
because you did your job and you did it really well.
- I think you're a hero.
There are so few people that would knowingly take on
what you agreed to do
just because...
you thought it was the right thing to do.
- E.M., you changed lives.
I... I really think that.
I think you changed people's lives
in the course of those nine days.
And, uh...
I hope you've seen the video of all the protesters,
and I hope you have received all the messages of support...
from across the country and other parts of the world.
People won't forget what you did.
Thank you.
Subtitling: difuze