A defence lawyer representing one of five hockey players on trial for sexual assault is suggesting the complainant was the one who took the reins during a sexual encounter with his client.
Daniel Brown, who represents Alex Formenton, suggested during cross-examination that the woman led Formenton into the bathroom to have sex after he said he didn't want to do it in front of the other players in the hotel room.
Brown suggested the woman guided Formenton during the encounter and established boundaries that he respected.
The woman, who cannot be identified under a publication ban, said Formenton followed her into the bathroom and she was “resigned” to sex occurring, but did not recall having any conversation with him about what was happening.
Formenton and his former world junior hockey teammates Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in connection with an encounter that took place at the Delta hotel in London, Ont., in the early hours of June 19, 2018.
McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
The events at the heart of the trial took place as many members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team were in London for a series of events celebrating their gold-medal performance.
The complainant, who has been on the stand via CCTV since May 2, previously testified that she met some of the players at a downtown bar and went back to the hotel with McLeod. She and McLeod had sex, an encounter that is not part of the trial, court has heard.
The woman was naked and scared when other men came into the room afterward, she said. She was drunk and went on “autopilot,” engaging in various sexual acts that she believed the men wanted from her, she said.
When she tried to leave, they would coax her into coming back, putting an arm around her shoulders, she said.
Defence lawyers, meanwhile, suggest she asked McLeod to call his friends into the room so they could have some “fun” because she wanted a “wild night.”
She egged the men on, asking if anyone would have sex with her, the defence has suggested on multiple occasions over days of cross-examination.
The complainant maintains she has no memory of saying those things, and that they don’t sound like things she would say. If she did say them, she said, that would be a sign of her level of intoxication.
On Friday, the woman pushed back against a defence suggestion that she was embarrassed and ashamed for the choices she'd made the night of the alleged incident.
She said she made the choice to drink and dance at the bar where she first met some of the accused, not to "have them do what they did back at the hotel."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2025.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
