Defence lawyer accuses E.M. of fabricating assault story to save relationship

Content advisory: This article includes graphic details of alleged sexual assault

London, Ont. – A defence lawyer representing Carter Hart, one of the five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team accused of sexual assault, suggested Wednesday that the complainant in the case made up a story about being assaulted so that her boyfriend would not end their relationship.

Hart’s lawyer, Megan Savard, asked E.M., whose identity is protected by a publication ban, during cross-examination about her relationship with a man who was her boyfriend of three months in June of 2018.

E.M. testified that while the alleged sexual assault involving the hockey players was difficult for her and her boyfriend, they are still together and engaged to be married.

“I am suggesting that part of why you’re so resistant this week to some of [defence attorney David Humphrey’s] suggestions that you actively participated [in the sexual activity] is because you know that story actually could have been a relationship ender,” Savard said to E.M.

E.M. responded that she wasn’t an active participant in the alleged act.

“Feeling like I was completely out of my body, I didn't feel like I was an active participant when I was that numb,” E.M. said. She said her boyfriend “knew my character. He knows me. So he didn't question it.”

Hart, Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube, and Callan Foote have been charged with sexually assaulting E.M. in a London hotel room following an evening of dancing and drinking on June 18, 2018. McLeod faces a second charge of being party to the offence. The players, who have pleaded not guilty, face as many as 10 years in prison if they are convicted.

E.M., who has previously testified that she had 12 alcoholic drinks the night of the incident, testified on Wednesday that she did consider her decision to leave Jack’s bar in London with McLeod that night “sort of cheating.”

E.M. told the jury that her fiancé is not watching news of the trial.

“He’s staying really far removed from it,” she said, adding that she hasn’t shared details of the alleged sexual assault with her fiancé. “Unless he asked for details or wanted to know, it was mutually agreed we didn’t need to get into that.”

Savard is the second defence lawyer to cross-examine E.M. after Humphrey, a lawyer representing McLeod. Lawyers for Formenton, Dube, and Foote will also have the opportunity to question E.M.

In her questions, Savard repeatedly referred to the defendants, who were between the ages of 18 and 20 in June of 2018, as “boys.”

Savard began her cross-examination by probing a statement E.M. provided to Hockey Canada on July 20, 2022. That statement, E.M. has admitted, had several false statements, including that McLeod saw her slip and fall at Jack’s, and that she didn’t know the players at the bar were hockey players the evening of June 18, 2018.

E.M. has testified McLeod wasn’t with her when she fell and that she knew the players were hockey players – but not that they played for Canada’s world junior team – when they were together at Jack’s.

E.M. testified that her lawyer prepared the 2022 statement for her and that she didn’t comb through and double check the details because she believed the investigation was only for Hockey Canada and that there were no criminal implications.

“I'm going to suggest that every word of your explanation to Mr. Humphrey for why these inaccuracies existed is false,” Savard said. 

“I don’t agree with that,” E.M. responded.

Savard then suggested to E.M. that London Police Service Det. Lyndsay Ryan met with E.M. at her home on July 20, 2022 at 8:44 a.m. to advise her that the police were re-opening their investigation. Later that day, E.M. signed her statement to Hockey Canada,

Savard suggested, adding that E.M. informed Ryan that her statement to Hockey Canada could be obtained from her lawyer.

“I don’t know the dates,” E.M. said. “I truly believe that when I signed this [the Hockey Canada statement], that I didn't know that it was being reopened yet...I thought this was for a separate investigation. I didn’t know it was all going together eventually.”

At one point, E.M. apologized to Savard when the lawyer challenged her over whether she was testifying about her memory of events or making assumptions of what might have happened.

“I forgot that my word choice here is really important,” E.M. said. “I’m just speaking with what’s comfortable now and how I usually speak. This isn’t something that I think a normal, everyday person has to go through and explain. So I apologize if my word choice is what’s confusing the matter.”

Savard also challenged E.M. about how drunk she was the night of the alleged sexual assaults. E.M. has testified she drank two coolers before leaving home, and consumed a beer, a vodka soda, and eight Jägerbomb shots at Jack’s. It was dollar beer night at Jack’s on June 18, 2018, and the beers being poured were not full cans, Savard suggested.

“Do you actually know how many ounces are in a Jack’s Jägerbomb compared to a Jägerbomb somewhere else?” Savard asked. “So it would surprise you to learn that there is maybe half as much alcohol in a Jack’s Jägerbomb as what you normally get?”

E.M. said that would surprise her.

E.M. also testified that her mother believed that E.M. had been “roofied” during the incident in June 2018 because her body ached, she wasn’t able to vomit even though she felt sick, and felt she had been “out of her body” during the sexual acts. (Rohypnol, also known as a “date rape drug,” is a powerful sedative that can be dissolved in a drink, is tasteless and odourless and impairs someone’s judgment, memory, and motor skills.)

Savard asked E.M. about the notes of a meeting she had with Ryan on Mar. 26, 2025, about a month before the start of the criminal trial, in which she explained that she “took on the persona of a porn star.”

The Crown has told the jury that there were as many as 10 men in the bedroom over the course of the evening. E.M. has previously testified that she heard a man in McLeod’s hotel room say, “This girl’s f---ing crazy” and that she heard the men urging one another to have sex with E.M.

“It felt like that was the scene they were kind of forcing on me,” E.M. testified. “They were trying to recreate a porn scene…That felt like the role they were kind of forcing me into. They weren’t letting me leave.

“It felt like I was an object for them. They had me on the ground on a bedsheet and they wanted me to perform for them. That's the role I took on to try and just get through that… It just felt like going through the motions, faking it [arousal while masturbating in front of the men] because I don't recall actually feeling anything. I felt numb.”

Following a lunch break, Savard asked questions about E.M.’s interview with London police on June 22, 2018, three days after the alleged incident. At the time, E.M. told a detective that it might have looked to some men in McLeod’s hotel room that she was consenting.

“Regardless of what you were feeling in your head, you were acting in a way that would've made the men in the room think that you were consenting?” Savard asked E.M.

“I don't know for sure how I was acting, I don't recall exactly what it was I was doing,” E.M. said. 

E.M. said she was “kind of flustered” by Savard’s questions. 

“I am trying to be as truthful and honest and give a good example of what it felt like and how I was treated and how it was in the room,” she said. “I think that definitely speaks to my level of intoxication. I feel they should have known, they knew how much I was drinking that night. They saw it themselves. There was way more of them than there were of me. Nobody thought that, ‘This was maybe not a good situation.’”

Later, Savard reminded E.M. about her previous testimony where she said how important it was to her not to make any false allegations. Savard suggested to E.M. that, in fact, she had not taken great care about who she was making accusations against. 

Savard pointed out that during her initial interviews with London police, E.M. identified former 2018 Canadian world junior hockey team player Sam Steel in a photo lineup as being one of the men she gave oral sex to in McLeod’s hotel room because he has dirty blond hair.

Steel, who is now with the Dallas Stars, has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

“I didn’t think they were going to go and file criminal charges,” E.M. said. “At the time, I was just doing my best… a lot of them look alike.”

Savard then referenced E.M.’s written statement to Hockey Canada in 2022 in which she alleged that Drake Batherson, who now plays with the Ottawa Senators and who has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing, was one of the first two men who entered the hotel room following her consensual sex with McLeod.

According to Savard, E.M. also told Hockey Canada in 2022 that Batherson was one of the players who lay down a bedsheet after she refused to lie on the floor.

E.M. testified Wednesday that while she remained certain Batherson entered the room, she’s now unsure whether he was one of the players who put down the sheet.

“I believe I had that in the statement [to Hockey Canada], but right now I’m not feeling very sure on that,” she told the court. “It did make sense to me that the first two people in the room would have been the ones to do that, and I think that’s why it’s in my 2022 statement. But being fully honest and transparent, I can’t say for sure whether that was him or not putting down the bedsheet.”

At 4:22 p.m. ET, following an emotional back and forth with Savard, E.M. broke down crying and the judge adjourned court for the day.