Hockey Canada

[Pierre McGuire]

Where are you seeing that it might be "thrown out"?

Yahoo Canada article I read today. Sounds like the Crown has totally botched their case.

Do you have a link to this article?

Don’t have the link but pretty sure it was Al Morganti

[Francis Park Thug]

Here are some live excerpts...just a warning, its graphic

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/l ... -9.6777319

So court is still very much in session. Feel free to share this yahoo article you read but I’m not seeing anywhere where the case is likely to get thrown out.

I haven’t been following this case super closely but my guess is the guys are found not guilty. Or at least most of them. But not an expert in Canadian law so not sure if they can even have separate verdicts or if they’ll all be found guilty/not guilty together.

But what I see here is a classic he said she said. While I think there’s a decent chance the guys took advantage of the situation I don’t see much in the way of actual proof to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. She says it wasn’t consensual, they all say it was. I see 3 scenarios that would all make sense to me. 1. They’re lying. They got their stories straight to just say it was consensual. 2. They were all clearly pretty drunk themselves and perhaps missed signals that she wasn’t all the way into it. 3. She felt shame afterward and sober her wouldn’t have done that so the thought would be that they technically sexually assaulted her because she was too drunk to consent. And I suppose a 4th option could be possible - she’s completely lying to screw with these guys. But considering how much torture she’s had to endure to keep reliving it, I consider this scenario unlikely.

What we know is she consented to sex with McLeod. We then know he texted his teammates, “who wants to be in a 3 way quick. 209- mikey” What we don’t know is if she wanted or requested that. She says absolutely not. Saw Mikey on his phone but then other guys just started showing up. Mikey’s lawyer suggested she requested to have a wild night with his teammates.

If I had to guess, I’d say Mikey McLeod is a likely scumbag and took advantage of this girl. Wanted to be the facilitator to his teammates for a wild night. But I don’t know that for sure. There’s absolutely reasonable doubt. Whether the others then did illegal acts or it was 100% consensual or they at least 100% thought it was consensual, I also don’t know. My guess is some shady stuff likely went down that night but of what I’ve followed in this trial, I’m not seeing it rise to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I’ll also add that the judge is a former defense attorney and threw out the interviews the prosecution described as critical to their case so yeah, without those interviews being a part of the evidence, I’ll be pretty surprised if they’re found guilty unless some big curveball occurs in the remaining portions of this trial.

As for our own Robert Thomas, his name finally came up yesterday and today. But thankfully it sounds like he was very minority involved - went to the room briefly, the woman was still clothed at that time and he left after 5 minutes.

Both Formenton and Dube told Newton that after a Hockey Canada event during which players received rings to celebrate their world junior championship, players went out to party at Jack’s bar in downtown London. Formenton and Robert Thomas, who were 18 at the time, were not allowed in Jack’s and instead joined some Team Canada coaches at Joe Kool’s, another downtown bar, where Formenton drank a beer and two rum and Cokes, Formenton told Newton.

After he returned to the hotel, Formenton told Newton that he walked into Room 209 with Hart and Robert Thomas, and that Thomas left after about five minutes. Formenton said that McLeod, Jake Bean, and Dube were in the room and that E.M. was sitting clothed on one of the beds.

I’ll note the drinking age in Canada is 19 and Formenton and Thomas where the 2 18 year olds on the team (Thomas would turn 19 the next month). Sounds like the 2 18 year olds were turned away at Jack’s bar. I’m just guessing here but both Formenton and Thomas played for the London Knights that season so decent chance they’d know what bars were perhaps more lax on underage entry and that’s how they ended up at Joe Kool’s instead. It was at Jack’s that McLeod and most of the others first met the girl.

I’ll be curious if the defense calls RT as a witness. But sounds like he was very minorly involved.

Thanks, as usual, for an informative breakdown.

[billybaseball]

I read her transcript from court and there is absolutely no case here. Her whole case is based on the players presence being intimidating enough that she initiated or agreed to sex to protect herself. It's absolutely ludacris. She even admits that she never declined or said no to anything. But by her own admission, she rid scolded one player because he slapped her (donkey) too hard. Now that just contradicts her whole story.