The Crown won’t challenge an Ontario Superior Court ruling that acquitted five former world junior hockey players of sexual assault in a high-profile case, according to a defence lawyer involved in the case.
Defence lawyer Daniel Brown, who represented one of the accused, Alex Formenton, said Aug. 21 that prosecutors had told him they won’t try to appeal last month’s acquittal of Formenton and four others players who had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in London, Ont., in 2018.
The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General had 30 days after the July 24 acquittal to appeal, but Brown said it has opted not to do so, although the ministry has not yet publicly confirmed Brown’s statement.
Last month, Formenton, in addition to Carter Hart, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, and Callan Foote were acquitted of all charges relating to accusations they had sexually assaulted a woman referred to in court documents as E.M.
The accusations in the case centred on events on June 19, 2018, when the five players were celebrating their gold medal win earlier in the year in London, Ont. According to court testimony, E.M. had consensual sex with McLeod earlier in the evening, after which McLeod allegedly came up with a scheme to invite his teammates in to engage in sexual activity with E.M. without her consent.
“Mr. McLeod in his statement to the police said that he checked with E.M. during the night to make sure she was okay. I accept that evidence,” wrote Justice Maria Carroccia of Ontario’s Superior Court in her 90-page decision acquitting the players.
E.M. testified of feeling dissociated and feeling like she should perform sexual actions with the players who entered and aggressively and jokingly engaged in sexual activity with her. According to court documents, she gave differing accounts of how drunk she had been at the time and the various incidents that allegedly occurred, as well as witness testimony bringing into question who had initiated the sexual activities with the other players.
In her decision acquitting the players, Carroccia found that E.M.’s testimony was inconsistent and unreliable, saying the prosecution had not proven the claims of wrongdoing beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. In particular, Carroccia pointed out numerous inconsistencies between E.M.’s testimony and earlier proceedings in a 2022 civil lawsuit she'd brought against Hockey Canada over the matter.
“I do not find the evidence of E.M. to be either credible or reliable,” Carroccia wrote in her decision. “Consent can be communicated by conduct and by words. In this case, I find that E.M. by her words was expressing her willingness to engage in sexual activity.”
The defence team hailed the verdict as backing up the testimony of the players, while E.M.’s lawyer said it was devastating for his client.
Despite the players’ acquittal, the National Hockey League (NHL) said all five of them are prohibited from playing in the NHL until it does its own assessment of Carroccia’s decision, while Hockey Canada has also said the players are suspended from all of its sanctioned programs. The union representing the players is contesting this decision.
Hockey Canada launched an independent panel to review the case in 2023 but has not yet released the results of its study.
