Complainant in hockey players’ sex assault trial says she adopted a ‘persona’ to cope

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This article was published 07/05/2025 (514 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by five ex-world junior hockey players agreed Wednesday that she took on a “porn star persona” as a coping mechanism while in a hotel room with the men and that it may have appeared to them that she was consenting.

Under cross-examination, the woman agreed that during a trial preparation meeting with prosecutors earlier this year, she described adopting the persona of a “porn star” that night in June 2018 because she thought it was what the men wanted and it would help bring the situation to an end more quickly.

She felt the men wanted a “porn scene,” the woman told the court. 

“That felt like the role that they were kind of forcing me into. … And unless I was doing what they wanted, I didn’t feel like I was going to get out of there,” she said.

Defence lawyer Megan Savard suggested that part of taking on that persona would have involved “offering sexual services or performances.”

The woman said she had no memory of doing that but acknowledged it was possible “based on this persona I was trying to use to cope.”

Earlier in the trial, the woman said she was naked and scared when men started coming into the hotel room where she’d just had sex with Michael McLeod, one of the five hockey players accused in the case. That initial sexual encounter is not part of the trial. 

CAUTION: The following paragraphs contain graphic content some readers may find disturbing.

She felt she had no choice but to go along with what the men wanted her to do and went on “autopilot” as she engaged in sexual acts that included touching herself while lying on a sheet on the floor and having vaginal and oral sex, she testified.

Defence lawyers, meanwhile, have suggested the complainant asked McLeod to bring his friends into the hotel room, and later invited those men to have sex with her.  The woman, whose identity is protected under a publication ban, has said she had no recollection of saying those things, and they did not sound like things she would say.

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

The five accused were all part of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team. Court has heard many of the team’s members were in London, Ont., for a few days in June 2018 to attend events marking their championship win.

Prosecutors allege that 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.

They allege Foote did the splits over her face and grazed his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant without her consent inside the bathroom. 

The Crown alleges McLeod also vaginally penetrated her without her consent at the end of the night.

Savard suggested Wednesday that regardless of how the complainant was feeling that night, she was acting in a way that would’ve made the men in the room believe she was consenting. 

The complainant initially disagreed, but then acknowledged she may have appeared to be consenting after hearing excerpts of statements she gave to police in 2018 and Hockey Canada investigators in 2022. 

“I feel like I wasn’t in control of how I was reacting but it could have appeared that I was consenting” she said.

“With the way I was, like I said, trying to cope with the situation, what I was doing, they probably got that assumption but they were already under that assumption before even getting to the room,” she said later in the exchange.

Savard also suggested Wednesday the woman made allegations against the players because she thought her boyfriend would leave her if she told him she’d had “group sex with a bunch of hockey players.”

The woman said she was honest with her boyfriend about what happened that night and took responsibility for her initial sexual encounter with McLeod.

In a day of cross-examination that at times turned tense or emotional, Savard focused on the complainant’s memory and how she described the events of that night in statements over the last several years.

There are gaps in the complainant’s memory, including how some of the sexual acts concluded and who put an end to them, Savard said. The woman agreed she could not conclusively identify for police any of the men with whom she had sexual contact aside from McLeod and his roommate at the hotel, who court has heard was Formenton.

She did not identify Hart as one of the men she gave oral sex to when looking at a photo with police in 2018, instead identifying another player who was not ultimately charged, court heard. The complainant said she was doing the best she could at the time and was relying on her memory of the man’s hair colour.

Savard also questioned the woman about the statement she gave in July 2022 to investigators retained by Hockey Canada.

Earlier this week, the woman said the statement contained several errors, including that she fell in front of McLeod at the bar where they met and that she hadn’t bought any of her drinks there after meeting him and his friends. The statement was written by her lawyers and she hadn’t had the chance to review her previous statements to police before signing off on it, she said.

She didn’t realize the significance of the statement to Hockey Canada because she believed it would only go to the organization, and the police probe was already closed, the woman said Wednesday.

Savard suggested police told the complainant they were reopening their investigation into the case the morning of July 20, 2022 – the day she reviewed and signed the statement to Hockey Canada. A week later, she flagged the statement for police and suggested it could clear up some of their questions, Savard suggested.

The complainant said she didn’t remember the dates on which things happened, nor did she recall what was said in her conversations with police, but that she would defer to the detective’s notes on the matter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2025.