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

LONDON, ONT.– Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham took aim at a purported consent video during her closing argument Friday, arguing the video is evidence of how Michael McLeod badgered the complainant to say what he wanted as he filmed her.

Cunningham discussed the filming of that video and Canada’s laws on consent during her closing statement on the final day of the two-month sexual assault trial of McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote.

The five players are charged with sexually assaulting a woman referred to in court documents as 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 she had to do to get out of the room safely.

In one video filmed by McLeod just after 3 a.m. on June 19, 2018, McLeod said, “You’re okay with this though, right? You’re okay with this?”

E.M. responded, “I’m okay with this.”

In a second video filmed at 4:26 a.m., E.M.’s torso was covered by a towel.

After McLeod said, “Say it,” E.M. answered, “This was all consensual. Are you recording me? Okay good.”

After McLeod said, “What else?” E.M. responded, “You are so paranoid. Holy. I enjoyed it. It was fine. I’m so sober. That’s why I can’t do this right now.”

E.M. testified that while she didn’t specifically remember the videos being filmed, McLeod had been “hounding” her to say she consented.

Cunningham asserted to Justice Maria Carroccia on Friday morning that the videos are “token lip service box checking,” and not evidence of any reasonable steps by the defendants to sincerely ascertain valid consent.

“Your Honour should find that when Mr. McLeod is saying, ‘Say it,’ and ‘What else,’ that indicates he's the one directing what [E.M.] should say in this video,” Cunningham said. “If she has been begging people for sex, calling them out for not doing stuff with her, why would he be telling her to say, ‘It's all consensual and it was fine. I enjoyed it’? Wouldn't we expect him to get her to confirm that she was the one asking people to do stuff, or to confirm that she was begging for sex all night?”

Cunningham pointed out that when the first video was........

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