Crown closes its case, accused player Carter Hart testifying at ex-world juniors sex assault trial

Savard asks Hart what he was “hoping for” that weekend in London, in terms of sexual encounters.

“I was open to sexual encounters. I was having a good time that weekend,” he says.

He says he responded “I’m in” because “I was a single guy. I looked at it as an invitation. I assumed he was with a girl who wanted to be in a threesome with another guy.”

Hart says he got a call from McLeod soon after the text. (This is the first time the court has heard that McLeod called anyone to invite them to the room.)

“I remember getting a phone call while I was outside,” Hart tells Savard. “I don’t remember the exact details word for word, but the gist was that Mike was with a girl back at the hotel who wanted to have sex with some of the boys — boys being my teammates.”

When the team was in Buffalo, N.Y., for the world junior hockey championships, Hart says, the players were all under age 21, so they didn’t get to celebrate their victory.

“When we go to London, we’d all pretty much completed our junior careers, so we were celebrating our gold-medal victory and having fun,” he tells the court.

(He was referring to the team’s time in the southwestern Ontario city in June 2018, when they attended a Hockey Canada gala and other events)

Hart says he doesn’t remember seeing E.M. at Jack’s bar. He went to Joe Kool’s (another London bar) at the end of the night because then teammates Alex Formenton and Rob Thomas were there. At some point, Hart says, he saw a text from McLeod that invited the teammates to his room for a “3-way.” Hart replies, “I’m in.”

Hart was single, he tells Savard.

After the Hockey Canada gala, Hart and some of his teammates got changed into their street clothes and went to Joe Kool’s on Richmond Row.

He says he’s not sure how they knew to go there, but assumes Rob Thomas or Alex Formenton, who had played junior hockey in London, would have known which bars they should go to.

Hart says he had three or four “normal-sized” beers and then went to Jack’s bar. Someone at the Hockey Canada gala had given him the name and number of the Jack’s bar manager, so Hart texted the manager to tell him that the team was on its way.

Everyone got in except Thomas and Formenton, who were under age.

Savard goes through how much Hart had to drink that night.

He says that at the world championship ring ceremony, he had one or two flutes of champagne, which he’d never had before.

At the Hockey Canada gala and dinner, Hart says, he had four to six vodka-sodas, which is what he usually drinks, although before this night, he says, he’d only consumed alcohol three times in his life.

Savard asks how the alcohol was affecting him.

“I’d say I had a good buzz going,” he replies.

Before Savard gets into details about the night of June 18, 2018, and the early morning of June 19, 2018, the lawyer asks her client about E.M., the complainant in this trial.

“Did you go to Room 209 that night?” Savard asks.

“Yes,” Hart says.

“Did you see E.M. there?” Savard asks.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Did you have sexual contact with her?” Savard asks.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Was it consensual?”

“Yes.”

Hart says he didn’t know the woman’s name until a few days later.

(As a reminder, E.M. is the name used in court as her identity iis protected under a standard publication ban).

Hart describes to the court how the world junior team is formed.

There’s a summer showcase of players and then they go back to their junior teams before a Christmas camp with some of the players is held. After a week of evaluations, the team is selected in December.

Hart says 2018 marked his second time making the world junior team, and that year, there were seven returning players.

Hart says Sam Steel is a good friend and his summer training partner, but he isn’t close friends with any of the other teammates.

His roommate at the 2018 tournament was the other goalie on the team, Colton Point, who was also his roommate at the Delta hotel that June night in question.

“It’s important to have a close friendship and camaraderie, but we were only together for a short time. We performed and won, but outside of that tournament, it was mostly just professional,” Hart tells Savard.

Hart tells his lawyer, Megan Savard, that he is 26 years old and grew up in Sherwood Park, Alta., where he lives in the summer.

Hart was an NHL goalie for six seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. He’s now a free agent, which means he is not signed by any team and is eligible to join one.

He says he last played hockey on Jan. 22, 2024.

Prior to playing in the NHL, he was in the Western Hockey League (WHL) for a team in Everett, Wash.

The WHL season lasts from September to March. The 2017-2018 season was his last in junior hockey.

Former world junior hockey player Carter Hart will be the first defence witness, says his lawyer, Megan Savard.

Hart is wearing a burgundy suit.

“Carter John Hart,” he says when asked his name after making his way to the witness box.

He swears to tell the truth.

Crown lawyer Meaghan Cunningham says she’s formally closing the Crown’s case.

She won’t be calling any other witnesses, as she suggested yesterday right at the end of the proceedings — something that stirred debate over a mystery witness.

Now lawyers for each of the five accused men can put forward witnesses or call evidence, but they don’t have to.

David Humphrey, representing Michael McLeod, says he won’t be calling evidence, given McLeod’s police statement in 2018 was already shown in court via video taken in 2018.

We will learn soon if the defence teams will call their own witnesses to testify in this trial.

I asked Toronto-based defence lawyer Karen McArthur how the defence might be gaming out their strategy.

“Remember the Crown has the obligation to prove its case, not your defence or your offence, but its case beyond a reasonable doubt. So the defence lawyers will need to do some mathematical calculations, “ she said.

That means doing their own review of the evidence:

“OK, well we've got this whopper here, we've got this statement here, that statement from that witness compared and contrasted with this statement from that witness — does that give us another point on the board.

“It's really a chess game in real time involving real human memories and documentary evidence like the texts, etc.,” she said.

McArthur says they will assess mathematically whether or not, in their estimation, the Crown has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

McArthur says if it were just one defendant, the Crown might rest its case, but given there are five accused, this might be one of the few times in this trial the teams split.