Hockey Canada trial reality check

LONDON, ONT. — Deep into Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia’s 91-page decision to acquit five 2018 Team Canada world junior hockey players of sexual assault were cautionary words from another judge that seemed largely to be forgotten over the past three years.

Carroccia quoted Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy in R. v. Nysnik, a 2017 case where three Toronto police officers were acquitted of sexual assault, where she wrote “(A)lthough the slogan ‘Believe the victim’ has become popularized of late, it has no place in a criminal trial.

“To approach a trial with the assumption that the complainant is telling the truth is the equivalent of imposing a presumption of guilt on the person accused of sexual assault and then placing a burden on him to prove his innocence,” she wrote. “That is antithetical to the fundamental principles of justice enshrined in our constitution and the values underlying our free and democratic society.”

The presumption of innocence is, as longtime London defence lawyer Ron Ellis said in our conversation after Carroccia’s ruling, “the pillar of our democracy, not just in our courts. Without it we are nothing.”

Carroccia included that quote for good reason. Ever since the allegations of sexual assault emerged in a hastily-settled $3.33-million civil lawsuit launched by the complainant in 2022 against Hockey Canada and others, there was an unshakable buzz in the public sphere that five men had to be guilty and were labelled lecherous, violent, conniving gang rapists.

That wasn’t what happened in Room 209 of the Delta Armouries Hotel on June 19, 2018. If it was anything, it was a stupid misadventure by a bunch of drunken hockey bros fueled up with booze from what amounted to a two-day bender brought to you by Hockey Canada, including some players who bellied up to the free bar at the gala all the men attended to celebrate their world championship.

All of the sex, as was determined by the judge, was consensual. Sex between consenting adults, even if it is certainly offside and morally repugnant, isn’t criminal.

This certainly wasn’t gang rape. And clearly, there were some very, very bad decisions — first by Michael McLeod to take the complainant back to his hotel room from a local bar, and by the other hockey bros who decided to take the woman up on her offers for sexual activity.

Once the case was publicized without any verified facts, it didn’t appear to matter that all the players had been cleared in 2018 after an eight-month investigation by experienced London police officers, or that the allegations contained in the woman’s statement of claim hadn’t been tested in court.

It didn’t matter that there hadn’t been a public airing of the facts.

Read the full article at the Windsor Star.