As i predicted from day 1 all five former hockey players will be cleared of all charges. This means that once they get clearance to play from Bettman they’ll be free to sign with an NHL team. Rumor is that Carter Hart will sign with the Oilers.
Hockey Canada sex assault scandal
- Thread starter Skym
- Start date
Only Carter Hart & Dillon Dube are bonafide NHL-calibre players & will likely get the opportunity to resume their NHL careers. As they should. Cal Foote & Alex Formenton aren’t NHL-calibre players & i don’t even think Formenton is still playing hockey. Michael Mcloud may have a future as a journeyman type of player but considering his talent level isn’t as high as Hart’s & Dube’s he may not get the same opportunity as they’ll get.
It's shameful that the NHL did not immediately state that all five players are eligible today to resume their careers. This case is a good example of the harm that a woman can do by making a false allegation of rape. Such a false allegation does great harm to the men who are accused and it does harm to any woman who might actually be a victim of rape, because it makes it harder for rape accusations to be believed. Also, the identify of the accuser should now be made public. There is no longer any reason to protect the identity of a woman who lied in court and tried to ruin the lives of five men.
She also should return the millions she received from Hockey Canada
My guess is that the NHL would rather wait to see if the Crown will appeal the verdict within the next thirty days & if they do will wait for the appeal process to be over. I doubt they’ll appeal. As other lawyers pointed out to the CBC yesterday appealing this particular case would create a bad precedent & even if they do the odds of overturning the judge’s verdict would be very low.
This case never should have been brought to trial in the first place. Especially 7 years later. It was obvious that the London Police & the prosecutors gave in to public & media pressure. They were extremely negligent by not even bothering to view the video footage from the bar & the hotel. They immediately could have seen that her story didn’t match with what she was claiming happened including her own state of intoxication. Whoever made the decision to pursue this prosecution deserves to lose his or her job. It was a witch hunt from the beginning. I still remember that press conference from last summer when that new police chief made the announcement & implied from the start that the former players were already guilty. It was a rush to judgement. That young police chief holds a share of responsibility in this mess & should be disciplined for his unprofessional conduct in that conference. It wouldn’t surprise me if the defendants end up suing the Crown & the London Police for the permanent harm caused to their reputation & professional hockey career. Even though they were found not guilty doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there who’ll still see them as being guilty forever & we’re already seeing it happen.
Nah. Fuck ‘em. They’re the ones who were negligent & chose to pay her for her silence to make the complaint go away. The players weren’t even made aware that Hockey Canada had settled with her & at least one player mentioned as one of the accused in the settlement wasn’t even around when the alleged incident happened. Hockey Canada’s decision to settle with her caused all this mess in the first place. So as far as I’m concerned they can go to hell!
As predicted the Crown opted NOT to appeal the verdict. This case never should have been brought to trial anyways. After a week of testimony i told a fellow observer “If that’s all the prosecution has these guys are all going to walk.” He agreed with me. I also wondered why some players were charged & others weren’t. For example what did Cal Foote do that was worse than anyone else in the room who wasn’t charged? He jokingly did the splits over the complainant without even touching her? So now doing the splits is sexual assault? What a joke! Obviously the prosecutors didn’t do their homework & wanted to believe every single word she claimed without bothering to further investigate her ridiculous claims. They ignored video evidence. They botched the interviews & in some cases tricked some reluctant players into an interview. This case will likely be made of an example for future law classes when NOT to prosecute.
Now it’s up to Bettman to let them pursue their NHL careers & the NHLPA has already shown the exhonerated players its support in the matter.
Now it’s up to Bettman to let them pursue their NHL careers & the NHLPA has already shown the exhonerated players its support in the matter.
It was more because of media & public pressure. Rick Westhead of TSN brought the incident to light after discovering that Hockey Canada had settled a sexual lawsuit case brought on by a woman from London in 2022. He learned that she had filed a complaint with the London Police way back in 2018 & after an investigation no charges had been laid. Then when the rest of the media got word of Westhead’s story they all jumped on the bandwagon. Public pressure to re-open the case increased after the CBC’s Fifth Estate weekly documentary show profiled the case in an episode called ‘Anatomy of a Scandal’ which portrayed the incident from the complainant’s POV & shortly after the new London Police chief held a live press conference announcing that he had decided to re-open the investigation & along with the lead prosecutor announced that they had filed charges against five of the team Canada players. It was obvious from his statements that the police chief had already made up his mind that all five defendants were guilty. I must admit that like many people watching that press conference & having watched the documentary plus the news reports about the case that the players were likely guilty & i was as outraged as everyone else!
Until i began following the trial on a daily basis and i soon came to the quick realization that this was likely a witch hunt & that the complainant’s story didn’t match. There were too many holes in her story. It also showed that the re-investigation by the police & the prosecution was suspicious & at times incompetent. They never re-interviewed the complainant for one. After getting her monetary settlement from Hockey Canada she wasn’t exactly thrilled that the case was being re-opened. She had nothing more to gain, really. They also never bothered to view video footage from the bar that night. I’m still not sure why Cal Foote was charged. It was also pretty obvious as the case went on that this trial was a witch hunt & many legal experts following the trial pointed out that this was a very weak case where in many other provinces never would have been allowed to see the light of day.
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