In 2018 police interviews played at sex assault trial, ex-players get graphic about night at London hotel

Court has now recessed until about 2:15 p.m. ET.

In summary, here’s what Newton agrees to under Humphrey’s cross-examination:

• E.M.’s mom eventually told Newton her daughter might make a police report if she is assured charges wouldn’t be laid, and later E.M. texts the officer and says she’s willing to speak to London police.
• They arrange to meet on June 22, 2018, and E.M., early on in the conversation, tells Newton she does not want to proceed with criminal charges or to go to court, she would be “satisfied if Newton speaks to the men about what they did.
• During the initial interview, E.M. is offered support from victim services, Humphrey says. Newton agrees he emphasized to her that they could take breaks, and if she was feeling uncomfortable, she should let Newton know.

“Were you trying to make her as comfortable as possible so that you could get as complete and accurate a memory of the events as possible?” Humphrey asks Newton.

“Yeah,” the detective replies.

“Because this was three days and five hours after she left the Delta, … you wanted her to tell you the whole story first in her own words, right?” Humphrey asks, to which Newton agrees.

The boyfriend told police McLeod “got the young lady drunk and then she was sexually assaulted,” Humphrey suggests to Newton, who agrees.

Other things the lawyer suggested to Newton, and to which he agreed, include:

• McLeod invited friends into the room.
• The gist of what the detective was told was E.M. was “extremely drunk,” “may have blacked out” and doesn’t remember going to the Delta with McLeod.
• The boyfriend said E.M. had woken up naked in a room with several young men.
• E.M.’s mom spoke to police and was told her daughter could make a sexual assault complaint anonymously.
• E.M. and her mom were going to a clinic to get medical attention.

McLeod’s lawyer, David Humphrey, begins cross-examination of Newton by asking about the “soft room” where sexual assault complainants are interviewed.

The complainant sits on a comfortable couch, and there’s a coffee table, and a comfy chair for the interviewer.

The interview technique is to make the complainant feel “as comfortable as possible” before starting the interview, Newton confirms to Humphrey.

Newton says he learned E.M.’s mom’s boyfriend spoke to police on June 19 and told them there was potential sexual assault to report.

The boyfriend said, and Newton understood, that E.M. (referred to as “the young lady” by Humphrey and Newton during today’s testimony) didn’t want her name given to police or to anyone at that time, and she didn’t want to report anything to police or want McLeod to get in trouble.

Newton testifies he got surveillance from the Delta hotel’s lobby, but was told there were no cameras in the second-floor hallways.

He says he obtained surveillance footage from Jack’s but did not look at it before doing the player interviews.

In fact, Newton tells Cunningham, he put it in storage in case it was ever needed, but he never actually looked at the bar’s footage.

Newton collected E.M.’s clothing in case it was needed for evidence, but he never sent it for forensic testing and it was later returned to E.M., he tells Cunningham.

Newton says he knew Hockey Canada was also doing an investigation, but he was told they "weren't in a position to release anything,” and he never got any search warrants or production orders to get the information from Hockey Canada.

That concludes the Crown’s questioning of Newton.

Now it’s time for cross-examination.

Crown lawyer Meaghan Cunningham asks the now-retired detective about his investigation.

He says he had heard the then players texted there was food available in the room, but he never saw those texts.

Newton says he never saw a group chat between the players and wasn’t aware of a McLeod text to a group chat that invited people to his room for a three-way.

Newton says he tried to interview players by asking Hockey Canada’s lawyer to pass on his contact information.

He never tried to interview other players beyond some lawyers reaching out to him, but "ultimately I never did secure their agreement to do an interview. Some just didn’t respond,” he tells Cunningham.

Newton interviewed McLeod, Formenton, Foote and Dubé, and no one else.

Because Dubé was captain of the Canadian world junior team, he was a leader and in charge of the championship trophy.

“I had to take the trophy wherever I went and make sure it didn’t leave my side,” Dubé says in the police interview.

He says he dropped off the trophy in his hotel room before going to Room 209, making sure his roommate kept it safe.

He says he was really drunk and if he were in a different state, he probably would have left right away, but he was able to determine that things weren’t “really bad.”

“If things were different and really bad, I probably would have controlled the guys and kind of kicked the guys out, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I didn’t think that she [E.M.] was drunk or against her will by any means.”

With that, the audio recording being played in court ends.

WARNING: This post contains graphic details.

The detective asks Dubé what he thought when he walked into the room and saw a naked woman there.

“I thought, ‘Holy, man! What the f–ck is going on?’” Dubé responds.

The woman was “coming at us. She was chirping us for not doing anything with her, which I thought was weird. I didn’t see that before,” he told the police officer.

Dubé tells the officer that the woman did not seem drunk “at all” and she was “talking normal.”

Asked again to describe the oral sex he received from the woman, Dubé says he “just kind of pulled down the front” of his pants, thought “this isn’t good,” and stopped things after “10 or 15 seconds.”

The woman didn’t seem like she didn’t want to be there, he says.

“I thought she wanted to be there more than us,” Dubé tells the detective. “I didn’t want to be there, to be honest. It’s not what I’m about. I don’t need that in my life. I feel like she wanted to be there.”

Dubé tells the police officer he was one of the last guys to arrive at the hotel room and one of the first to leave, so he wasn’t there a long time.

In the recording, the detective asks him how he knew to go to Room 209.

Dubé says teammate Jake Bean texted, “‘Hey boys, I ordered pizza, room whatever,’” and nothing about a woman in the room.

Dubé says he didn’t look at his phone for the rest of the night.

“No mention of a girl in the text?” Newton asks? “No,” Dubé answers.

Court has previously seen texts from McLeod telling a group text that a woman was available for “a three-way” in his room.

WARNING: This post contains graphic details.

Newton asks Dubé to take him through the night of June 18 and early-morning hours of June 19, 2018.

Dubé doesn’t say much about being at the bar (although he thought it was Jack Astor’s, not Jack’s bar). He tells the investigator that when he walked into the hotel room, he saw a naked woman.

“At one point, I stood up and I thought, ‘I might as well,’ so I pulled my pants down and she came up to me and gave me oral for like, 10 seconds maybe, and I kind of knew it was a bad idea. I didn’t want to be part of this and I stumbled back,” Dubé tells the detective.

With his pants somewhere around his ankles or knees, he sort of fell, and Cal Foote helped him put his pants back on.

“I was like, ‘I don’t want to be here, let’s go,’” Dubé says in the police interview.