NHLer at sex assault trial of ex-world junior teammates describes anxiety after learning of investigation

Raddysh recalls when the world junior team members started getting calls from Hockey Canada, telling them an investigation was being launched.

He describes being nervous and fearful, even though he didn’t see the woman naked or participate in anything.

He says that when he was interviewed in 2018, he was on the phone with a buddy that night. In fact, he was on the phone with his girlfriend, who is now his wife.

“We were freshly dating and she was one of my good friend’s sisters, so it was very uncomfortable” giving her name to investigators, so he didn’t. He flagged that to London police in 2022.

Dudding asks Raddysh again about his recollections and how the player is relying on the 2018 transcripts.

She points out that no one asked him what he recalls now before he testified.

Carnelos asks him about what happened after his play with the world junior team. By the time they got to London, most of the players had turned professional and were no longer juniors.

Carnelos makes the point that when they got to London in June 2018, they were no longer a team — they’d turned pro, and Dubé was no longer the team captain because “the team didn’t exist at that point.”

“I guess you could say that,” Raddysh says.

Each defence team now has the chance to cross-examine Raddysh. Here are the lawyers on each team:

• David M. Humphrey and Anna Zhang (McLeod).
• Megan Savard and Riaz Sayani (Hart).
• Daniel Brown and Hilary Dudding (Formenton).
• Lisa Carnelos and Julie Santarossa (Dube).
• Julianna Greenspan and Lauren Crawford (Foote).

Humphrey asks Raddysh about texts he had with McLeod, about feeling terrible the morning of June 18 (before the gala), and the two of them going to a hot tub.

Sayani asked Raddysh if he remembers putting a sheet down on the floor of McLeod’s room for E.M. He says “no.”

Because it’s been seven years and Raddysh can’t recall much of June 18 and 19, 2018, he’s been allowed to read into the record his answers to questions from July 5, 2018, when he was interviewed by an investigator.

Basically, Raddysh and Crown lawyer Meaghan Cunningham read out the questions and answers, and the jury is allowed to consider that past statement.

He told the investigator back then that he was only in McLeod’s room very briefly, and that he saw a woman on the bed but wasn’t sure if she was clothed or not. She had covers up to about her neck, and he saw her trap (upper back and neck) muscles, but she could have been wearing a top with bare shoulders, he says. Her head was propped up on a pillow, which was up against the headboard.

He says he was “politely avoiding” looking at her. Raddysh’s room was next door to McLeod’s where the players and E.M. were. He remembers his roommate Brett Howden coming in a bunch of times, and finally Raddysh asked him to stop slamming the door because he was trying to sleep.

Raddysh says he heard “hooting and hollering” coming from next door in the early hours of June 19, 2018.

Good morning. I’m Katie Nicholson, a senior reporter based in Toronto and I’m in London covering the trial.

On Wednesday, we saw a lot of videos, pictures and texts, but none may be as contentious going forward as two short videos of E.M., the complainant, appearing to give consent.

The videos were taken roughly an hour apart from the phone of Michael McLeod, one of the five accused men, in the early hours of June 19, 2018.

Lisa Kerr, a law professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., says it’s not clear if video evidence like that is particularly helpful for the defence or the Crown.

Kerr suggests the defence may argue “this is a person who was clearly OK with what happened and they only changed their story later.” Or, she suggests, they might use it if it contradicts something she says at trial and perhaps undermines her credibility as a witness.

“On the other hand,” Kerr told me, “the Crown might say, ‘Why was this video made, especially after the sexual activity? Was there a concern about the lack of consent? Was this an attempt to sort of make up for the lack of consent at the time of the sexual activities?’”

“In Canadian law,” Kerr says, “consent has to be contemporaneous with the sexual activity. So if you have a video of someone saying, ‘I consent to do the following,’ and it's in advance, the key question is still going to be: Did they change their mind?”

Kerr says the video evidence may not determine whether consent was given for each alleged act that night, and the jury, as the Crown argues, will have to consider what may have happened before and after those videos were taken.

But Kerr does think the videos will help jurors get a sense of what else might have been happening and make other inferences. Their conclusions will depend on the rest of the evidence presented in the case and what they make of all of it.

The supporters of E.M. shout, “Break the silence, stop the violence,” as each of the accused and their legal teams walked into court this morning.

They’re staying on the sidewalk with signs over their heads as the accused and lawyers stare straight ahead and walk through the main doors of the courthouse to go through security.

For the first time in this trial, about a dozen people stood outside court, holding signs in support of E.M., the complainant.

The supporters showed up at around 8:15 a.m. ET (the courthouse opens at 8:30, the accused and lawyers usually show up just after 9, proceedings set to begin at 10), and held signs reading “Believe Survivors,” “Break the silence, stop the violence” and “Elbows up, E.M.”

Among those outside the courthouse was Canadian activist Judy Rebick, who spoke to the media about the importance of consent laws in Canadian justice.

She told me she feels deeply for E.M., who will testify later against the five accused. Rebick also said she feels for the accused men, because the justice system is such an adversarial process.

Good morning. I’m a producer based in Toronto and I’ll be curating our live updates from Superior Court in London, Ont., today.

The trial for five former world junior hockey players continues with testimony from Taylor Raddysh, a forward with the NHL’s Washington Capitals who played on the Canadian world juniors team in 2018.

Raddysh started his testimony on Wednesday and was supposed to continue yesterday, but court was let out early because a juror was ill. He’s expected to finish his time in the witness box today.

During his first day of testimony, he showed the court a text message in which he told a group chat that a Hockey Canada executive had phoned him to tell him about an investigation.

Raddysh isn’t facing any charges himself. He’s appearing at the trial remotely.