Content advisory: This article includes graphic language and details of alleged sexual assault

LONDON, ONT. – Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham asserted Thursday that defence lawyers for five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team have inappropriately trumpeted rape myths during the high-profile sexual assault trial.

Canadian courts have increasingly rejected what experts call “myth-based reasoning,” – the mistaken belief that a “real” victim would fight back, remember everything, and behave a certain way, Cunningham said, noting that the defence lawyers in the London hockey trial pressed the complainant in the case during cross-examination about why she didn’t call for help, or lock herself in the hotel room bathroom if she felt threatened.

“Some people will fight or resist,” Cunningham said as she continued her closing argument that started on Wednesday. “Some people will flee; some people will freeze. Some people will appease or fall back on habits or reflexes… some people will dissociate or detach from reality. Some people will do a combination of all these things. These are all normal, predictable responses.”

Cunningham suggested to Justice Maria Carroccia that the complainant in the case, E.M., whose identity is protected by a publication ban, did what she had to do to survive an “extremely vulnerable and potentially dangerous situation,” when she emerged naked from the bathroom in Michael McLeod’s hotel room in the early-morning hours of June 19, 2018, and a number of men were in the room.

McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, Alex Formenton and Callan Foote are charged with sexually assaulting E.M. in McLeod’s hotel room, following a Hockey Canada ring ceremony to celebrate their 2018 world junior championship months earlier. McLeod faces a second charge of being a party to the act. The players have all pleaded not guilty.

The Crown has alleged that after E.M. had consensual sex with McLeod, he surreptitiously invited his teammates to his room and that she was sexually assaulted for hours.

The Crown has alleged that Formenton had sex with E.M. in the bathroom, that McLeod, Hart and Dube received oral sex from the complainant, that Dube slapped E.M.’s naked buttocks, that Foote did the splits over E.M.’s head and “grazed” his genitals over her head, and that McLeod had sex with E.M. for a second time in the hotel room bathroom.

E.M. testified during the trial that as many as 11 players were in the room over the course of the evening and that some players spat on her and slapped her. At one point, one of the players suggested she put golf balls in her vagina and asked aloud if she “could take” an entire golf club inside of her, E.M. testified. She has said she went into an automaton state and did whatever........

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