Woman's drinking at bar, memory under defence scrutiny at sex assault trial of ex-world junior players

E.M. says she can’t really recall the exact order of what happened at the Delta hotel after the men got to the room.

She says she has trouble identifying the other men, but McLeod and Formenton stick out in her mind because she had one-on-one sexual activity with them.

Formenton and E.M. had sex in the bathroom at some point early in the night, court has heard.

Brown suggests E.M. pulled Formenton into the bathroom for sex. The lawyer also said a witness at the trial will testify that happened.

E.M. says, “I don’t remember that but I guess it could be possible.”

She does remember someone saying, “Someone have sex with this girl” and, “This girl is f–ing crazy.”

Brown’s questioning turns to E.M.’s weight on the night of the alleged assaults.

She previously estimated she was 120 pounds.

Brown says that according to her medical records, she was 138 pounds.

He pushes her on the 18-pound difference and suggests she wanted to leave the impression with the jury that she was much smaller than the men.

E.M. rejects that insinuation, and says she wasn’t weighing herself and maybe was just hoping she was still 120 pounds back then.

E.M. says she “distinctly remembers” having two shots, and then Maccarone holding one up to her mouth and her taking it.

She says that exchange wasn’t captured on surveillance camera overtop of the bar because Maccarone is taller, and he was facing away from the camera and blocking the view.

“You also remember you not buying any drinks, but we know that distinct memory was wrong,” Brown says.

Surveillance cameras caught E.M. buying most of her own drinks, but she says she remembers more drinks being purchased for her that might not have been captured on camera.

Maccarone has denied “force-feeding you alcohol,” Brown tells E.M.

The Jägerbomb shots had half the amount of a regular shot of alcohol (half an ounce, not a whole ounce).

Dollar beers at Jack’s that night were also about one-third the size of a regular beer, Brown says.

“I think it’s something you knew and intentionally held back because you wanted to make it seem like you drank more than you actually did,” Brown says.

Brown tells E.M. he has a few more questions about Jack’s bar, and then he’ll start asking her about her time at the Delta hotel.

Brown tells E.M. to recall her testimony that she didn’t have any drinks after “the man in the white dress shirt” left. (That man is Matt Maccarone, who was in his late 30s and was out with the world junior team on the night in question in June 2018.)

E.M. says she had two Jägerbombs, then Maccarone poured one down her throat. She says that was the last drink she remembers having with the man in the white dress shirt, but she may have had more afterwards — she doesn’t remember.

Court is shown video of Maccarone leaving Jack’s bar around 1 a.m.

The complainant, E.M., is back in the closed-circuit television (CCTV) room and the jurors are in their seats.

Throughout the trial, she’s been testifying via CCTV, which is then broadcast on a big screen in the main courtroom.

Proceedings restarted at 10:30 this morning (rather than the usual 10 a.m.) because other juries were being chosen in the London courthouse.

Since there are only two working elevators, there would have been quite a traffic jam if the potential jurors, the London hockey trial’s jury and all the defence teams were showing up at once.

Dan Brown, the lawyer for Alex Formenton, one of the accused men, is picking up his cross-examination this morning.

As defence lawyers have been grilling E.M., the complainant in this case, they've commented several times that she had clearly been well prepared for the proceedings.

Legal experts told us those preparations would have started long before the trial. Counsel can spend months with their clients studying evidence and discussing how best to answer questions in court, stressing the need to maintain composure.

It’s a careful balance — under-preparing can create issues, but overpreparing can make answers seem too rehearsed. Ultimately, there’s no way to guarantee how testimony unfolds in court.

"Just like if you play sports — you can practise as much as you want. It's different when you actually get out on the court, or on the ice or whatever it is and play the game," said Christopher Sherrin, a law professor at London's Western University.

Read more about how complainants prepare for the witness box here.

Each of the five accused men in this trial has a defence team. Their respective lawyers get an opportunity to question the complainant, E.M.

The trial began April 25 with jury selection and proceedings got underway April 28.

Court left off on Friday with questions from the third of those five teams, meaning E.M. is a little more than halfway through her time being questioned via video from another room.

She has accused the five men of assaulting her at a London hotel after a night out at Jack’s bar in 2018.

The men’s lawyers so far have focused their cross-examination on E.M.’s behaviour before, during and after the alleged assault, from what she drank and how she danced at the bar to the “persona” or “alter ego” they suggest she adopted at the hotel.

Lawyers have raised questions about inconsistencies between E.M.’s police statement, civil lawsuit and testimony in court. They have also questioned her about misidentifying two men as potentially involved in the alleged assault, when they were not.

E.M. has said she is remembering details as best she can and has maintained she did not consent to what happened in the hotel room.

You can read more about last week’s cross-examinations here.

Good morning. I’m a producer based in Toronto and I’ll be curating our live page today.

Our team of reporters is back at Superior Court in London, Ont., to bring you the latest developments from the sexual assault trial of five former world junior hockey players.

Stay with us as court gets back underway.