After eight days of tense cross-examination, the female complainant in the high-profile world junior sexual assault trial remains on the stand Wednesday.
Defence lawyers for Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote finished their questioning of the 27-year-old woman, whose identity is protected under a standard publication ban, on Tuesday. Crown prosecutors can now follow up on any topics raised in that process.
The complainant, known as E.M. in court documents, first took the stand virtually on May 2 to testify about her allegations against the five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team.
All five men have pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault stemming from what the Crown alleges was non-consensual group sex in McLeod’s room at the Delta hotel in London, Ont., back in June 2018. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
Court has heard the team was in town for events marking its gold-medal performance at that year’s championship, and E.M. was out with friends when they met at a downtown bar on June 18. After being with McLeod and his teammates at the bar, E.M. would go on to have consensual sex with McLeod in his room in the early morning hours of June 19.
Court has heard E.M., who was 20 at the time, was in the washroom after she had sex with McLeod and came out to a group of men in the room allegedly invited for a “3 way” by McLeod in a group chat.

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Throughout the marathon cross-examination, defence lawyers have suggested E.M. wasn’t as drunk as she has testified she was, wanted a “wild night” with the players, was “egging” them on to have sex with her and accused her of having a “clear agenda” at the trial.
E.M. has both pushed back against those claims, and at points outright rejected them, saying she was coaxed into staying in the room, was disrespected and was taken advantage of by the group who she said “could see I was out of my mind.”
— with files from Sean O’Shea and The Canadian Press
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