LONDON — The detective who lead the initial investigation into allegations of sexual assault involving five former members of Canada's world junior hockey team told their trial Wednesday he had formed a general assessment of the case before speaking to any of the players.
Det. Steve Newton gave more details on the steps he took to investigate the allegations — and some of his concerns about the case — as court heard interviews he held with two of the accused months after the encounter with the complainant.
Newton's interviews with Alex Formenton and Dillon Dube were played in court Wednesday, a day after court viewed his interview with Michael McLeod. Newton also interviewed Callan Foote by phone, he said, though that recording has not been presented in court.
In arranging the interviews, Newton informed some of the players' lawyers he did not believe he had grounds to lay charges, court heard. He repeated that at the outset of each interview played in court, but noted his view might change depending on what he heard.
Daniel Brown, who represents Formenton, suggested that at the time he was setting up the interviews, Newton had "already generally made assessments in this case" based on the other evidence he'd collected and the statements from the complainant.
"That's correct. The purpose for conducting the interviews was just to get their side of the event and round it out ... and just to complete the investigation," Newton said, testifying via videoconference.
Newton, who is now retired, had told the complainant a week after the encounter that he wasn't sure he would get to a point where he would have reasonable grounds to lay charges, and communicated that to her again later in the summer, court heard.
At the time, he had pointed to video footage of her arriving at and leaving the London, Ont., hotel and his belief that she didn't appear overly inebriated. He had said that by her account, "there may have been a certain level of consent given her active involvement," court heard.
He clarified Wednesday that he meant she was participating in the acts “without resisting or saying she didn’t want to do it or anything like that.”
Newton told the court he also had concerns that the woman was being pressured by her mother to pursue charges.
Formenton, Dube, McLeod, Foote and Carter Hart have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault, and McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
The charges stem from an encounter that took place in a hotel room in the early hours of June 19, 2018.
Prosecutors allege McLeod, Hart and Dube obtained oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube slapped her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.
Foote is accused of doing the splits over the woman's face and grazing his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant inside the bathroom without her consent.
Many members of the 2018 national world junior team were in town for a few days in June of that year for a series of events celebrating their championship win.
Several of the players went out afterward to a bar, where the complainant was drinking with co-workers, court has heard. The woman, who cannot be identified under a publication ban, left with McLeod to go to his hotel room, where they had sex.
The initial encounter alone with McLeod is not part of the trial, which instead focuses on what happened after several other men came into the room.
The woman has testified she was naked, drunk and afraid when men she didn't know suddenly started coming into the room. She went on "autopilot" as a coping mechanism as she engaged in sexual acts, she said.
The defence suggests she was initiating the sexual activity and at times taunting the players to engage in sexual acts with her.
In conducting interviews with the players, Newton was particularly looking for evidence related to consent and the complainant's capacity to consent, he told the court Wednesday.
He asked Formenton whether, after some reflection, he felt "this girl was taken advantage of" by the group, to which Formenton replied that the woman has been "instigating pretty much everything that happened."
Formenton said he "volunteered" to have sex with the complainant after she asked him and his teammates if anyone would "do anything" with her.
Many of the guys in the hotel room "didn’t feel comfortable" getting naked and having intercourse in front of the group, and several of them had girlfriends at the time, he said in the November 2018 interview, which was recorded on video.
Formenton also found it "very awkward and weird" to do it in front of the others, he said, so he followed the woman into the bathroom and they had sex.
He said he went to the hotel room after receiving a text from McLeod, his roommate, around 2 a.m., saying "there’s a girl in the hotel room that wants to have a threesome." He also said McLeod texted that they were getting food and the woman would "probably be there for a while."
Formenton told Newton he didn't have the texts anymore because he'd gotten a new phone.
In a phone interview with Newton in December 2018, Dube said he received a text he believed was from another teammate, Jake Bean, about someone ordering pizza to a room, but there was no mention of a girl. He said he didn't look at his phone after that.
When he walked into the room, there was a woman lying naked on a sheet on the ground, Dube said, adding he didn't know what was going on.
The woman said she was getting dressed and leaving because no one would have sex with her, but she took her clothes off again after Hart indicated he would do something with her, he said. She performed oral sex on Hart, he said.
At one point, Dube said he stood up and thought, "I might as well." He pulled down his pants and received oral sex for about 10 seconds, he said.
"Then I kind of knew it was a bad idea and I didn’t want to be a part of it so I kind of stumbled back," he said.
Soon after, Dube, Foote and another teammate left, he said.
Newton asked him if he got the sense the woman was "there against her will" or not willing to engage in those acts, and Dube said no.
"I feel like she was chirping us for not, like, doing anything with her, which I thought was weird," he said.
One of Dube's lawyers, Julie Santarossa, asked Newton why he hadn't asked her client whether he'd made sexual contact with the complainant's buttocks, something Foote had mentioned in his interview earlier in December 2018.
Newton said he wasn't sure, but may have overlooked it. "There's a lot going on, a lot of events and acts, and maybe I missed that," he said.
Court has seen a text McLeod sent to a team group chat shortly after 2 a.m. that night, asking if anyone wanted to be in a "three-way" and listing his room number. Hart replied, "I'm in."
Newton told the court Wednesday he never became aware of that text in the course of his investigation, nor did he reach out to McLeod or his lawyer later to ask about the text mentioned by Formenton. He also didn't see the text Dube referenced, or hear of a group chat in which the players who were in the room discussed how to respond to Hockey Canada's investigation into the encounter, he said.
The detective obtained but didn't watch surveillance video from the bar, and didn't interview any other players on the team, though he was in contact with counsel for a few others, he said. Court has heard he could not compel the players to speak with him and was "somewhat" surprised some chose to do so.
Newton closed the investigation without charges in early 2019. It was reopened in 2022 under a different investigator, court heard.
On Tuesday, court watched a video of McLeod's interview with Newton, which took place a week before Formenton's. He did not mention either text, even when asked whether he had sent any messages that would bring more players to the room.
"I don’t know how guys kept showing up," McLeod said. "I just told the guys I was getting food and there’s a girl over there, that’s all I said to a few guys."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
