July 2025
I have mixed feelings regarding the recent court ruling in London’s Superior court. Legally, it was the right decision, but from a moral standpoint, it’s sickening that it even happened in the first place, and both sides have mud on their faces.
Regardless of their acquittal in the courtroom, I still think each and every one of the hockey players are complete scumbags – Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton and Carter Hart. On 24 July, Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia found the accused not guilty of all charges in an encounter with a woman, publicly known as E.M., seven years ago. On top of that, Justice Carroccia had some pretty scathing comments for E.M. in her ruling
The five former members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Team were accused of sexually assaulting E.M. in a hotel room in London, Ontario, where they had been attending a Hockey Canada gala.
I find their behaviour, regardless of any legality, absolutely reprehensible. This type of behaviour is common in certain professions and tolerated. That doesn’t necessarily make it illegal, but it also doesn’t make it morally right either. Some of my music and entertainment idols are guilty of morally repugnant behaviour too, but I can think they are morally lacking, and yet, still enjoy the entertainment they provide.
As for E.M., regardless of what happened, whether she consented to have sex with the other four players or not, I do find the fact that she went willingly to the hotel to willingly have sex with McLeod, to be morally disgusting. This woman had a boyfriend, and by having sex with this man, she was cheating on him. I have no idea if they were in the process of breaking up at the time, or if they were “On a break,” but reports have indicated that the “happy couple” broke up not long afterwards. That said, they reportedly were still a couple at the time of the alleged offence.
Cheating is a sore point for me, as I have been cheated on before and it hurts to be violated in that way. It was almost three decades ago and it still hurts, partly because of the cheating itself, and partly due to the lying and gaslighting.
Now the legal side: pretty much all the police and Crown Attorney had to work with was witness testimony, notoriously the most unreliable form of evidence you can present in court. Frequently that’s all the evidence police have, especially with sexual assaults, so you go with it and hope the victim is believable in court. Then, it comes down to the judge or jury believing the testimony or not. As a legal requirement, if both the victim and the accused are equally believed by the judge/jury (equally compelling), the accused must be acquitted. Better 99 guilty men go free, than one innocent man go to prison.
That gets to another truth of our legal system (I refuse to call it a justice system) is that the truth really doesn’t matter. It only matters what you can prove. Sometimes the truth and the evidence are the same, but sometimes not.
There were two videos of the victim claiming it was all consensual, but the Crown attempted to render them unreliable, as neither captured the alleged offence. There was suggestion by the Crown that the video admission by the victim that it was all consensual was not done willingly, but under duress. Other videos obtained by police during their investigation showed E.M. behaving in ways that undermined the suggestion that she was too impaired to fully understand and consent to the sexual activity, as did the “consent videos.”
Should E.M. have been believed, as we are all told in sexual assaults, or is she guilty of poor judgement? Remember, regret after the fact doesn’t mean it was rape. That’s not to say that E.M. deserved to be abused in such a reprehensible fashion by these scumbags. Maybe if the other 4 scumbags has said no to McLeod’s invitation to engage in sexual activity E.M. that night, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had consented or not.
At the risk of victim blaming, maybe if E.M. hadn’t decided to cheat on her boyfriend, the alleged assault wouldn’t have happened either, but she made her choice, and so did the five scumbags. E.M. stated that she felt threatened and feared harm, and was that’s why she capitulated, but maybe it might have been worth it for her to get a black eye, if she was able to flee the room. At least the black eye would be good evidence of an offence against her.
Whenever I park my car in a public parking lot, I always expect my car to get broken into, so I park it in the most visible spot that I can find, hoping that by making the chances of being seen will discourage any potential thieves. If my car still get broken into, it’s not my fault, but at least I took steps to help minimize the changes of me becoming a victim. Once again, not to victim blame, but E.M. made a conscious decision to go back o the hotel with a man who, quite frankly, was a stranger, to have sex, regardless of whether she had a boyfriend or not.
It should be stressed that these five scumbags weren’t acquitted on a technicality. There simply wasn’t evidence to convict the five accused, beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice Maria Carroccia stated in a scathing summation of the case that E.M. was simply not credible or reliable. This brings up another very important issue.
Is it fair that E.M. wasn’t believed? Will this ruling have the effect of discouraging future victims from coming forth with their allegations? It might, but what it really does is maintain the legal concept that when someone makes a criminal allegation against someone, that it will be scrutinized and judged upon, just as it should be, because if it was E.M. was the one facing the allegations, she would expect nothing less from the police and the court. As someone who faced allegations that were completely false, not kind of false, or a misunderstanding, but were completely false, I was very happy that the evidence proved the allegations false.
At the very least, these scumbags have been convinced in the court of public opinion, so there’s that, and it appears their hockey careers are essentially over, as the NHL is declining to re-instate the players at this time.
A lot of liberals seem to enjoy disparaging conservatives with their family values approach to sex and relationships (and yes, the conservative blowhards who preach family values tend to be the ones who get caught with their pants down, literally), but if we held ourselves to a slightly higher moral standard, instead of the free for all hedonism that occurred in that hotel room, maybe we wouldn’t be talking about this case today.
Sources: Five ice hockey players found not guilty in Canada sexual assault case, NHL says five players acquitted of sexual assault ineligible to play | TSN.
