Crown questions one of five hockey players accused of sexual assault about consent

LONDON — A hockey player believed a woman’s offer to have sex with him and his teammates in a London, Ont., hotel room meant she consented to any sexual act with any of the men, prosecutors suggested Friday at a sexual-assault trial for him and four other players.

Carter Hart faced a series of questions from prosecutors on whether he took any steps to confirm that a “mystery woman” who was in a hotel room with him and several other members of Canada’s world junior hockey team consented to sexual activity.

Hart agreed earlier in his cross-examination that he came to the hotel room hoping for and expecting a sexual encounter after teammate Michael McLeod texted a team group chat asking if anyone wanted a “three-way.”

That message was followed up by a phone call in which McLeod indicated he was with a woman who “wanted to have sex with some of the boys” – the boys being their teammates, he previously testified.

Hart testified that throughout the night, the woman was “continuously” asking the men in the room to have sex with her, but could only recall two specific phrases, and couldn’t remember her saying anything else of a sexual nature.

“I’m going to suggest that you believed that by saying those things, (the complainant) was essentially communicating to you that she was consenting to pretty much any sexual act with any guy in the room,” prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham said Friday.

“I did think that it seemed that she, like, was consenting to people, yes. She was making that offer to everybody in the room,” Hart replied.

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

The events at the centre of the trial took place as many of the team’s members were in London for a series of Hockey Canada events celebrating their victory at that year’s championship.

Prosecutors allege 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.

Foote is accused of doing the splits over the woman’s face and grazing his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant inside the bathroom without her consent.

The complainant, who was 20 at the time and cannot be identified under a publication ban, met several of the players at a bar where they had gone to continue celebrating after a Hockey Canada gala, court heard. She left with McLeod and they had sex in his hotel room, an encounter that is not part of the trial.

She was drunk and naked when men she didn’t know started coming into the room, she said. The woman testified that no one physically forced her to do anything but she felt she had no choice but to go along as the men discussed sex acts they wanted her to perform.

Her mind “shut down,” she said, and she engaged in sexual acts while on “autopilot.”

The defence has suggested she was the one initiating the sexual activity, at times taunting the players to engage in sexual acts with her.

Hart began laying out his account of that night on Thursday after the Crown finished presenting its evidence in the case, and faced questions from prosecutors on Friday.

He walked to the hotel with Formenton and another teammate, Rob Thomas, after leaving Joe Kool’s bar, he said, and was outside when he saw McLeod’s text. Hart agreed he must have discussed the text with Formenton but couldn’t remember the conversation.

When the three of them went to the room, Hart didn’t know anything about the woman or what she wanted aside from what he had heard from McLeod, he agreed during cross-examination. He didn’t learn her name until days later, he said.

His drinking that night, combined with the passage of time, left several gaps in his memory, as well as some uncertainty regarding the order of events, he said.

His first memory of the woman is seeing her masturbating while naked on a sheet on the floor of the room, he said. He didn’t remember speaking to her or asking the others in the room any questions before then.

Hart previously said that before committing to the sexual encounter, he wanted to assess the situation in the room and make sure everything was consensual.

“But you can’t tell us whether you actually did any of that assessing when you first got into the room, can you?” Cunningham asked. “I’m not sure, I can’t remember,” Hart said in response.

Asked whether it was possible that someone had asked or told the woman to touch herself, Hart said he didn’t remember but didn’t believe that was possible.

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

His next memory is of the woman asking the group something along the lines of, “Can somebody come f— me?” he said. Some of the guys looked at each other in disbelief, Hart said, adding he was excited.

He didn’t want to have intercourse so he asked her for a “blowie,” or oral sex, and she responded with “yeah” or “sure,” he said. The oral sex lasted 30 to 60 seconds because he couldn’t get fully erect and felt weird about doing it in front of everyone, he said.

He previously described receiving oral sex as being open to taking the woman up on her offer, but Cunningham noted the woman never offered oral sex.

“You weren’t taking her up on an offer when you put your penis in her mouth. You are the one who asked for oral sex,” Cunningham said.

“I did ask, yes,” Hart replied.

“You asked her, ‘Can I get a blowie’ while she is naked in a room with at least eight men,” the prosecutor continued.

“Yes. I asked her in response to what she had said,” he answered.

At another point, the woman seemed annoyed and indicated she would leave if no one had sex with her, he said. Hart said he texted another player, Dante Fabbro, to come to the room because he thought Fabbro might want to have sex with the woman.

Cunningham suggested he did so because he “wanted to keep her there and doing sexual things because it was fun for you guys,” but Hart said he couldn’t remember how he felt at the time, just that he did send the text in response to the woman’s words.

That interest in keeping the party going and finding more sexual things to do with the complainant also prompted calls for Foote to do the splits over her, Cunningham suggested.

Hart maintained that Foote was fully clothed and didn’t touch the complainant when he did the splits over her.

The group had seen Foote do the splits fully clothed many times before, the prosecutor suggested, and it would be more interesting for them to see him do the splits over the woman’s face with no pants on.

“I mean, that’d be pretty weird,” Hart said before agreeing the whole night was weird.

The players who were in the room formed a group chat about a week after the encounter to discuss how to respond to Hockey Canada’s investigation, court has heard. Hart said Thursday he thought everyone in the chat was “just agreeing to tell the truth.”

His first message to the group came after more than 100 texts from the others. In it, Hart said they “got consent to anything that she did,” but he agreed Friday that the only sexual contact he remembered seeing is the oral sex he received.

In another message, Hart asked whether he should speak with a Hockey Canada staff member who had requested a call, and if so, what to tell him.

Hart said Friday he was asking the group to weigh in because he knew Hockey Canada’s code of conduct was strict regarding partying and girls.

“You were concerned about getting into trouble and so you were asking other people what you should say to help yourself not get into trouble, right?” Cunningham suggested.

“From Hockey Canada? Yes,” he said.

Hart’s lawyer, Megan Savard, told the court she isn’t calling any other witnesses. Court has previously heard McLeod’s legal team isn’t calling evidence. It is not yet known whether any of the other players will testify.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press