As NHL players face sexual assault charges, the media ‘circus’ begins in London, Ontario. | Top Vip News

LONDON, Ont. – Satellite news trucks marked the hotspots on a quiet, gloomy Monday in central London.

They lined up outside the Queens Avenue entrance to the courthouse before most people had arrived for work, accompanied by a bank of cameras and reporters producing live footage before the first court appearance of five members of the team. 2018 canadian junior world championships accused. with sexual assault.

The level of curiosity was not tempered by the fact that none of Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart or Michael McLeod were present. Even his lawyers opted to convene courtroom number 4 by video for a brief hearing rather than appear before the justice of the peace and a gallery filled almost exclusively with journalists.

“The circus has come to town,” commented one local, and she was not wrong.

When the hearing ended, the satellite trucks moved south to the York Street convention center and began setting up before the London Police Service made public comments on the charges for the first time.

Since this story broke in the spring of 2022, it has captivated a hockey-obsessed nation. The fallout reached the highest levels of government, when parliamentary hearings were convened amid public outrage over the handling of a civil sexual assault lawsuit involving members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team. Those hearings helped dismantled the upper levels of Hockey Canada’s management structure and expelled major corporate sponsors. Now, as the case moves toward legal proceedings and a possible trial, the appetite for information has only increased.

At one point during his Monday press conference, London Police Chief Thai Truong reminded the media that they did not gather to debate the merits of hockey culture.

“I’m not a hockey player. “I don’t know (anything) about hockey,” he said. “This is a sexual assault investigation.”

More than 70 members of the media and a dozen cameras filled the room where Truong read the charges facing the five men who played professional hockey until they turned themselves in to police in London last month: two counts of sexual assault for McLeod and one each for Dubé, Foote, Formenton and Hart, following an alleged incident that occurred in June 2018 inside a room at the Delta London Armories hotel after a Hockey Canada gala where the team was celebrated for its medal of gold.

Truong apologized to the alleged victim for the time it took to file charges in the case.

“I want to extend, on behalf of the London Police Service, my sincerest apologies to the victim, to his family, for the time it has taken to get to this point,” Truong said.

I was standing in “Conference Room E” on the main floor of the London Convention Centre, just down an escalator from the ballroom where the Hockey Canada gala was held on June 18, 2018.

Despite the media and public clamoring for answers, London police spokespeople refused to shed much light on why they decided to reopen their investigation in July 2022 after initially closing it in February 2019.

Truong and Detective Sergeant Katherine Dann dodged questions on this topic; They repeatedly claimed that sharing too much information with the public could jeopardize the case.

“It’s a great question. And it’s a question that everyone wants to know. And right now I can’t answer that question,” Truong said. “It will really compromise the current process. “There is a time and a place.”

“We cannot provide specific details about what occurred over the last year and a half because that is the evidence in the case,” Dann added at another point in the press conference.

Both Truong and Dann said reopening a criminal case should not be considered atypical.

“I would say it’s not abnormal for us to reopen a case,” Dann said. “If anyone contacts our police service and shares that they had a negative experience during the reporting process or that there was an issue with the conclusion of the investigation, then we will definitely look at it twice.”

“If we’re talking about criminal offenses, it’s not uncommon for investigations to be closed pending more information or evidence to emerge,” Truong added.

And while London police went to great lengths on multiple occasions to identify this process as a single, ongoing investigation, rather than two separate investigations, Truong acknowledged that the initial officers who investigated the complaint in 2018 are no longer actively working on this. case.

“I can tell you that you are not part of this investigation team at this time,” Truong said.

Earlier Monday, lawyers for the five players appeared on behalf of their clients in the Ontario Court of Justice in London. The court appearance was brief, lasting about 15 minutes, and consisted primarily of procedural matters. The court imposed a publication ban to protect the confidentiality of the alleged victim, referred to as “EM” in court documents, and two witnesses, and set a date (April 30) for the next appearance.

Justice of the Peace Tara Oudekerk presided over the court appearance and Heather Donkers represented the Crown Prosecutor’s office.

Donkers said the Crown would proceed by indictment and that Meaghan Cunningham and Kristina Mildred have also been assigned to the case. Cunningham is the chair of the Sexual Violence Advisory Group, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Donkers said the Crown will send disclosure materials, including audio/video components and paper documents, to defense attorneys shortly. The next court date is expected to include a review of that disclosure material and a Crown resolution meeting.

Hart, Formenton, Dubé and Foote face a charge of sexual assault. McLeod faces two counts of sexual assault, and the additional charge as part of the crime.

According to Dann, “one charge that was brought against him is related to his own actions, and the crime portion of the charge is related to assisting another person and committing the crime.” When asked how McLeod “helped” in the offense, Dann said he couldn’t provide any further details.

The London Police Department declined to comment on the possibility of charging more people in the future.

“I’ll just say that we have laid out charges for which we have reasonable grounds at this time,” Dann said.

During Monday’s press conference, Dann read a statement from attorney Karen Bellehumeur, who represents EM. According to the statement, the alleged victim is firm in wanting to see how this legal process develops.

“It takes an incredible amount of courage for any survivor of sexual assault to report to the police and participate in the criminal justice system,” the statement said. “That’s certainly true for EM, but she remains committed to seeing this process through. “We simply ask that the media and others respect her privacy and dignity as this matter moves forward in the judicial process.”

In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Hockey Canada said it had “fully co-operated” with London police throughout their investigation.

The governing body said that, pending the completion of an appeal process as part of its own independent review, “all players on the 2018 National Junior Team remain suspended by Hockey Canada.”

When they appear at their next court date in London, the defense will have a better idea of ​​the nature of the evidence they face. Over the next 12 weeks, lawyers for the five players will have the opportunity to review evidence collected by London police. They will use this time to strategize the best approach to defending their clients against these charges. The five players, through their lawyers, have maintained their innocence.

But even with the next hearing scheduled for April 30, the potential trial date is still in the distant future, and experts estimate those proceedings would begin sometime within 18 to 24 months.

Given the high-profile nature of the case and the fact that the investigation was closed at one point, scrutiny over the London Police Service’s handling of these charges is likely to continue. In the absence of clear answers on Monday, there will likely be more calls for accountability and transparency from the department when it comes to sexual assault cases in the region.

And Truong and his department know they will be under the microscope after allowing such a long delay to occur in this case.

“As police chief, it’s not something that makes me happy that it took six years. I’m really not happy with this at all. I don’t think any of our members are happy about this,” Truong said. “That’s why I apologized to the victim and her family. But I can assure you that I am confident, confident, that this will not happen again.”

(Photo: Peter Power/AFP via Getty Images)