Defence grills woman in world junior sex assault trial about gaps in memory, surveillance tape | Breaking News and Top Canadian Stories

Defence grills woman in world junior sex assault trial about gaps in memory, surveillance tape — 'Consent videos' a focus of ex-world junior hockey players' trial Complainant in hockey sexual assault trial grilled about ‘porn star persona’ Complai...

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Brown presses E.M. about some of the things she said happened at the bar but that weren’t caught on surveillance video.

For instance, she said someone poured a Jägerbomb into her mouth and the men put her hands on their crotches. Those aren’t in the footage.

E.M. responds you can’t see the man giving her the shot because the man’s back was turned away from the camera and it was a busy dance floor so you can’t see anything.

“It’s not on surveillance but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” E.M. says.

What is on surveillance, Brown says, is E.M. taking her own shots and grabbing McLeod’s crotch on her own.

In cross-examination, Brown suggests to E.M. that she didn’t mention the bouncer to anyone because he wouldn’t support her “story” that other people were buying her drinks that night.

“You would have known that this person could help you escape this group of players, throw them out of the bar, for example, if you were being handled or touched inappropriately?” he asks.

E.M. says she didn’t want to bother someone she knew from high school about anything.

“I try to handle my own issues,” she says. “The thought didn’t occur to me.”

Brown insists she didn’t mention him because he would not back up her story.

E.M. disagrees.

“He would have no idea about what happened later on in the room,” she says.

“I was really embarrassed about what happened to me … I didn’t want anyone to know.”

E.M. admits that she didn’t mention to police or Hockey Canada that a bouncer she knew from high school was working at the bar on the night in June 2018.

After watching the video surveillance footage for the first time during trial preparation in March 2025, she wrote a letter to the main London police detective telling her she had not previously mentioned the bouncer but wanted to explain after noticing herself speaking to him on video.

“I didn’t mention him [earlier] because I didn’t see him later in the night and he wouldn’t have any knowledge of what happened,” she wrote to the detective in March. “I was concerned about my privacy and I didn’t want to implicate him in this matter.”

A bit of show-and-tell here in the courtroom.

Brown has brought in a one-ounce shot glass and a Jägerbomb shot glass from Jack’s. He pours the Jägerbomb shot into the one-ounce glass so we (and the jury) see that it is about half full.

“You had eight Jägerbomb shots, [but that] was the equivalent of four shots of alcohol. You hadn’t drunk as much as you thought," Brown says to E.M.

Brown suggests E.M. “unintentionally” left the impression she had more alcohol in her body than she actually did.

Brown also says Formenton wasn’t at the bar at all that night because he was 18 years old, which under law is underage for consuming alcohol.

Brown points out that E.M. told police investigators in 2018 and Hockey Canada investigators in 2022 that she bought herself two shots and didn’t pay for any other drinks that night.

On video shown in court, she’s seen taking out money from an ATM and buying herself some drinks after the two shots.

“You said you got it wrong in 2022 because you hadn’t looked at your 2018 statement,” Brown says. “Why did you say that in 2018?”

E.M. responds: “I don’t recall saying I didn’t buy my own drinks; I said for the large portion of the night I wasn’t paying for drinks.”

Brown is going through how much E.M. has said she bought.

The morning break is over and Brown has resumed showing E.M. surveillance video from Jack’s bar.

Cross-examination will continue afterward.

Brown shows a video of players from the world junior team entering Jack’s bar one after the other.

He asks E.M. if she recognizes any of the men.

She says she can’t identify most of them.

“I didn’t know anybody that night.”

Brown has entered a new exhibit: a sheet of paper with a picture of Sam Steel, another member of the 2018 world juniors team who’s currently with the NHL’s Dallas Stars.

Handwriting under the photo says, “I don’t remember him from Jack’s but he was in the room and I performed oral on him.”

Brown and E.M. agree the London police detective wrote down E.M.’s responses to the picture at the time of their interview in 2018.

“You wrongfully accused [Steel],” Brown said after some back and forth.

Court has heard somebody else ultimately identified another defendant, Carter Hart, as a suspect who allegedly received oral sex from E.M.

“OK,” E.M. responds.

E.M. has been asked several times over the last few days about her inability to distinguish between some of the players, in particular those with blondish hair.

Brown shows E.M. videos from Jack’s bar. He points out the chronology seen on video is different than what she described in her 2022 statement to Hockey Canada.

For example, she guessed back then that she danced for a short time — maybe 15 minutes — and men bought her drinks all night.

Video shows E.M. dancing for one minute and going to the bar with a friend before buying two more shots.

“I just want to be really clear here,” Brown says. “I’m not trying to trick you into saying something. You are acknowledging that your best memory was wrong.”

E.M. says that’s not really true. She says it's impossible to have a "complete recollection of every single second” of that night.

Her 2022 statement was a high-level reconstruction, she says, not a minute-by-minute play by play.

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