WARNING: This article references sexual assault and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
A former world junior hockey player was in the witness box for the first time at the sexual assault trial of five teammates from the 2018 championship team, telling the London, Ont., court about players’ text exchanges and a call he received from a Hockey Canada executive about an investigation.
Taylor Raddysh, now a forward with the Washington Capitals, testified remotely Wednesday from Arlington, Va., hours before their playoff game against the Montreal Canadiens.
The trial is hearing the case against Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton, who’ve all had NHL careers. The five have pleaded not guilty to one count each of sexual assault. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of being party to the offence.
Raddysh’s testimony ended early and is expected to resume today as CBC continues its live coverage.
Under examination by Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham, Raddysh spoke about how he felt making the world junior squad.
“As a kid, you really want to be part of that team,” he said.
The world junior team’s captain, Dubé, was tasked with being a leader “on and off the ice,” Raddysh said, a role requiring him to “lead by example.”
Raddysh was the second witness Wednesday, after London police Det. Tiffany Waque, who showed videos of the group of men dancing together and with E.M., the complainant in the case whose identity is protected by a publication ban.
At one point in the surveillance video taken early into June 19, 2018, at Jack’s bar, Dubé is seen taking off his shirt. In another, he picks up E.M. as she straddles him on the dance floor.
E.M. is seen having her ponytail pulled by one of the players on the dance floor and her buttocks slapped. She dances with McLeod and others.
In one of the videos taken at the bar by McLeod using his phone at 1:21 that morning, the players are dancing and singing to Hey Baby by DJ Ötzi. The song was played whenever a goal was scored during the 2018 world junior hockey tournament the Canadian team won months earlier, the jury was told.
Justice Maria Carroccia, who’s overseeing the case, cautioned jurors they can’t draw conclusions from seeing E.M. kiss McLeod or having other “physical interactions” with players.
The law restricts how prior sexual conduct can be used by a jury, Carroccia told them.
She said jurors can use her actions in the dance floor to help assess E.M.’s state of mind as the evening progressed, and her level of intoxication and her credibility, but they can’t use what she did on the dance floor to determine whether the men are guilty or not guilty.
“You can’t think that because of the sexual nature of what happened at Jack’s that she is more likely to have consented to the sexual activity or that E.M. is less worthy of belief,” Carroccia said. Inferences like that are based on myths that can’t be considered by the jury, she added.
The jury was also shown surveillance videos from the lobby of the Delta Armouries hotel’s bar, with groups of players arriving at different points in the early hours of June 19.
Someone suggests going to a strip club, then some time later, McLeod texts the team group chat, asking, “Who wants to be in a 3-way quick,” signed “(room) 209- mikey.”
Someone using Hart’s phone replies, “I’m in.”
Eleven players are in the group chat, court was told: Hart, Foote, Dubé, McLeod, Formenton, Jake Bean, Maxime Comtois, Drake Batherson, Tyler Steenbergen, Brett Howden and Sam Steel.
A little later, Raddysh receives a group message from McLeod, asking him if wants to come to McLeod’s room for oral sex. Raddysh doesn’t reply.
The jury also saw two videos from McLeod’s phone that were taken at the end of the night.
In the first, timestamped 3:25 a.m., E.M. is clothed and could be heard being asked if she is “OK with all this stuff,” and she responds, “Yeah, I’m OK.”
In the second video, at 4:26 a.m., E.M., wearing no clothing, is holding a towel in front of her chest.
She says, “It was all consensual. Are you recording me? K, good. You are so paranoid. Holy. I enjoyed it. It was fine. I’m so sober — that’s why I can’t do this right now.”
Raddysh testified he didn’t remember much from that night. He came home from Jack’s, and went to his hotel room and Facetimed with his girlfriend. His roommate, Howden, woke him up at some point in the middle of the night, but he didn’t remember when.
Raddysh said several times, “As I sit here today, I don’t recall,” when asked questions by the Crown, including having no memory of being asked by McLeod and another player, Boris Katchouk, coming to his room and asking him to hang out.
Raddysh recalled a woman in the room but not what she was wearing or what she was doing, he testified.
He did remember getting the call from Hockey Canada executive Shawn Bullock about a week after the night in question, telling him an investigation was being launched.
“I called my father,” Raddysh said.
He also testified he passed on that information to a teammate.
“Bully just called me,” Raddysh texted McLeod on June 28, 2018. “Said there’s an investigation.”
Raddysh’s testimony ended just before 4 p.m. ET because he had “a commitment,” Carroccia told the jury.
Eight weeks have been set aside for the trial. CBC’s live coverage today is expected to start before 10 a.m. ET.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your area, you can look for crisis lines and local services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
