Crown accuses Howden of inconsistencies in testimony at London hockey trial

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

LONDON, ONT. – Brett Howden, a member of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team, testified Tuesday at the trial of five of his former teammates, telling the court he remembered Dillon Dube and Callan Foote both phoning him in June of 2018 and asking him not to tell a Hockey Canada investigator what he had seen them do in a London hotel room in the early morning hours of June 19, 2018.

Dube, Foote, Michael McLeod, Carter Hart and Alex Formenton, are charged with sexually assaulting a woman referred to in court documents as E.M. McLeod faces a second charge of being a party to the act. The players have all pleaded not guilty.

E.M. has alleged that after dancing and drinking with McLeod and a number of his Team Canada teammates at Jack’s bar on June 18, 2018, she went willingly with McLeod to his hotel room and had consensual sex.

E.M. has alleged that after they finished having sex, a number of other men began showing up at the hotel room and that she was then sexually assaulted for several hours, taking on a “porn star persona” to get out of the room safely.

Dube has been accused of slapping E.M. on the buttocks, and Foote has been accused of doing the splits naked over top of her, grazing his genitals over her face.

Howden testified Tuesday that both Dube and Foote phoned him in the days after the alleged incident. 

“I don’t remember the conversation [with Dube],” Howden testified. “I just remember being asked to leave his name out of things.”

“Who called who?” Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham asked.

“I don’t remember,” Howden answered.

“Tell us all the things you remember Dube telling you during that phone call,” Cunningham said.

“I honestly don’t remember our conversation on the phone,” Howden answered, adding that he had a similar conversation, the details of which he also does not remember, with Foote.

Tyler Steenbergen previously testified that Dube and Foote both also phoned him and asked him to not tell Hockey Canada investigators what he saw them do in the hotel room.

The 27-year-old Howden, who plays for the Vegas Golden Knights, testified remotely from Las Vegas. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Howden, who wore a hoodie and appeared to be speaking from an office, testified that he agreed to the players’ requests and didn’t mention Dube or Foote’s alleged actions when he was interviewed on July 3, 2018, by Danielle Robitaille, a Toronto lawyer hired by Hockey Canada to investigate the alleged sexual assault.

“It was hard to leave it out,” Howden testified. “I am an honest person… I didn’t lie. I just didn’t bring his name up.”

Howden testified that after returning to the Delta Armouries hotel from Jack’s bar at 2:41 a.m. on June 19, 2018, he went briefly to his own hotel room before going to McLeod’s room to look over pamphlets for local restaurants and see which ones might be open to order food.

Howden testified that he remembered Team Canada teammates McLeod, Formenton, Dube, Hart, Foote, Sam Steel, Drake Batherson, Jake Bean, Maxime Comtois and Steenbergen being in the room at various points in the night.

Howden said that he first saw E.M. when she came out of the bathroom in McLeod’s room. 

“I just remember casually hanging out with everybody,” Howden testified. “What brought my attention to her was she was starting to flirt with guys, starting to say a bunch of stuff. Coming on to whoever was around her, essentially… I just remember her trying to be flirty with whoever she could be flirty with.”

As players refused E.M.’s sexual advances, she became more aggressive, Howden testified.

“Eventually she started chirping guys, taunting everyone, because no one would take her up on what she was wanting,” he said. “I remember her calling guys p-----s for not engaging with her. I remember her not stopping when nobody was taking her up on it… at one point she said she couldn’t believe guys weren’t taking her up on her offers.”

Howden testified that he saw Hart and McLeod receive oral sex from E.M.

“Carter said, ‘Fine, I’ll take her up on it,’” Howden testified.

Court has previously heard evidence that after McLeod sent a group text message to his teammates early on June 19, 2018, asking, “Who wants to be in a 3 way quick. 209- mikey,” Hart responded, “I’m in.”

Cunningham asked Howden about how long E.M. gave oral sex to Hart.

“I don’t remember if it was long,” Howden said. “I don’t remember anything like that. I don’t remember looking. I was uncomfortable. It was awkward… I just remember after a while of her begging anyone, he was the one who took her up on it.”

Howden testified that after E.M. gave oral sex to Hart, she did the same with McLeod.

“It was awkward,” Howden said. “I wasn’t just watching the whole time. I was looking away. Trying to talk to someone. Take my attention away… I just remember everybody was just sitting and hanging out.”

Formenton has been accused of having sex with E.M. in the bathroom of McLeod's hotel room. Howden was also asked if Formenton made any comments to his teammates before he entered the bathroom with her. 

“I remember him saying something along the lines of basically, ‘Should I be doing this?’” Howden testified. “A couple of guys around saying she’s taking you to the bathroom. It’s really your call if you want to do anything with her… He was looking for advice or something like that [from] a couple of us sitting there.”

Howden testified that he heard but did not see Dube spank E.M.

“Can you help us with how much force was used in the spank?” Cunningham asked.

“I don’t know,” Howden answered. “I don’t recall seeing it or where it was in the room.”

At that point Cunningham gave Howden the chance to review a text message exchange with Taylor Raddysh, who previously testified in the case. After he was done, Cunningham asked if his memory had been refreshed.

“It doesn’t refresh my memory in any way,” Howden said. “It doesn’t change my view of how I remember it.”

Howden also testified Tuesday morning about a June 26, 2018 group chat that featured 11 members of the team in which the players learned Hockey Canada was probing an alleged sexual assault a week earlier and discussed what they would tell investigators.

“All we have to say is ‘someone brought the girl back to the room. We were all in there ordering food and then this girl started begging from everyone to have sex with her. Nobody would do it. But then as time went on she gave 3 guys head. Once things started to get out of hand we all left and got her out,’” Howden wrote in that group chat at 8:14 p.m.

“Yeah or no?” he wrote moments later.

“At the time you wrote that, what were you trying to do?” Cunningham asked.

“I was trying to say exactly what happened,” Howden answered. “That was me being honest with the situation.”

Cunningham later asked Howden what he had meant when he wrote that things had gotten “out of hand.”

“To me the situation was not a situation I wanted to be in,” he answered.

Howden testified he didn’t know how long he spent in McLeod’s hotel room.

Cunningham asked Howden to review other texts he sent his Team Canada teammates.

“F--k. Mikey has the video of her consenting. Like we just show bully [Hockey Canada official Shawn Bullock] that and we’re fine,” Howden wrote at 8:15 p.m. on June 26, 2018. 

“Nobody forced her to do anything. If anything we should put allegations on her f--k,” he wrote a few moments later.

Cunningham asked Howden what he meant when he sent that text.

“During all of this I think there was some anger that was coming across because, in that situation, I felt she was the one initiating everything,” Howden testified. “She was the one who put us in that situation. I don’t even know if I’m using the right term. It’s just emotional anger that she’s trying to say those things were the other way on us.”

Cunningham asked Howden to explain how he could be sure that no one had forced E.M. to do anything sexually.

“I’m talking about in the room when I was there,” he answered. "She was the one begging guys, asking guys to do anything with her.”

Cunningham’s frustration with Howden appeared to grow throughout the afternoon as he continued to say that he couldn’t remember details of the alleged incident or what happened in its aftermath.

She repeatedly asked him to review transcripts of interviews he did with Robitaille in 2018 and 2022, and with London police detectives Tiffany Waque and Lyndsay Ryan on Aug. 23, 2023.

Even after reviewing transcripts, Howden said he couldn’t remember many details.

At about 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Cunningham told justice Maria Carroccia that she planned to pursue a voir dire, essentially a trial within a trial, on Wednesday morning to cross-examine Howden.

Cunningham said that there were at least 15 inconsistencies in what he testified on Tuesday compared to his prior three statements.