Hart, McLeod, Dube, Foote, Formenton charged with sexual assault

[taxbuster]

@MBates .. once again, thank you for the clear and lucid explanation of what is clearly (hah!) a murky, and though well-articulated point of law, equally difficult to analyze and comprehend in any given situation. “Fraught with peril” comes to mind with such a judgment.

[Murph]

Reading the CBC’s transcripts, it seems like the details Howden forgets are heavily weighted towards those that might incriminate his buddies as opposed to exonerate them.

[traptor]

Originally Posted by Murph

Reading the CBC’s transcripts, it seems like the details Howden forgets are heavily weighted towards those that might incriminate his buddies as opposed to exonerate them.

Yeah it's funny the level of detail he can remember regarding certain things verse others.

Noticed this as well throughout his testimony. Anything that could be remotely incriminating, he can't remember, but he actually remembers lots of details.

[kipperiggy]

Originally Posted by traptor

Yeah it's funny the level of detail he can remember regarding certain things verse others.

Noticed this as well throughout his testimony. Anything that could be remotely incriminating, he can't remember, but he actually remembers lots of details.

Wasn't the original number of players involved 8?

Speculation but wonder if he was one of the additional 3 that wasn't charged. Could be something similar to survivors guilt happening.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by kipperiggy

Wasn't the original number of players involved 8?

Speculation but wonder if he was one of the additional 3 that wasn't charged. Could be something similar to survivors guilt happening.

There were 8 players mentioned in the Hockey Canada settlement, two of which apparently weren't even aware they were accused (Gadjovich and Steel). There are inconsistencies and recall issues on both sides of the table.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Murph

Reading the CBC’s transcripts, it seems like the details Howden forgets are heavily weighted towards those that might incriminate his buddies as opposed to exonerate them.

That is the fortunate way for his friends that the cookie crumbled with his head injury.

[Manhattanboy]

Interesting looking at the roster of that team. In addition to Sam Steel, included Makar, Bean, Batherson, Kyrou and Robert Thomas.

[rage2]

Originally Posted by traptor

Noticed this as well throughout his testimony. Anything that could be remotely incriminating, he can't remember, but he actually remembers lots of details.

Nah, his memory is all over the map. Only remembers the gists of the interactions. He previously stated during investigation seeing EM pull formenton into bathroom, but today can’t remember that detail. Just remember them going in together but not how. Couldn’t remember McLeod checking to make sure EM was ok, even tho he stated he remembered that clearly previously. Those would’ve been convenient details to remember today to help his buddies.

He remembered McLeod couldn’t get hard. I’m sure that’s one McLeod would like him to forget.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by rage2

He remembered McLeod couldn’t get hard. I’m sure that’s one McLeod would like him to forget.

If you are being charged with rape, I think that is just fine.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Hackey

Ok fair enough. Then the issue would be the severity of the action more so than the consent of the action. Either she wasn't cool with any of it or she was okay with some of it and guys took it to far.

Originally Posted by taxbuster

Think this is misstating the issue, which remains "consent".

As @itse pointed out in an earlier post, people experienced in the field have things like "safe words" and as well to protect the person...AND they check in on "severity"....AFTER they have "consent".


So a person might be OK to play with light smacks, where they are not OK with a physically powerful hockey player applying who knows how much force....and can consent to light smacks whereas a full whack is out of bounds. It's definitely out of bounds if no consent was provided I'd think, regardless of "severity".

I have so many thoughts about this case.

One is: people eff up this stuff all the time by accident. Almost any sex has some risk of someone doing something the other isn't okay with, and when you get into territory like this, it's just inherently risky. Everything kinksters learn they typically learn the hard way. Most kinksters start young, stupid and often drunk, and my guess would be that basically everyone either hurts someone or gets hurt in an unpleasant way at some point when first entering into the genuinely non-vanilla territory.

It is very possible for guys in this situation to do things like just hitting too hard, even multiple times. This kind of stuff is why kinksters use the acronym RACK, meaning Risk Aware Consensual Kink. Because "safe, sane and consensual" had two words that just weren't really accurate.

For guys who are as fit as elite hockey players, I would guess it's not even that hard to hit someone too hard, especially if you get carried away and you're not very experienced (there's some technique involved etc)... And getting carried away is kind of what people often want out of sex. Which is exactly why accidents happen. Getting carried away is also very human, it's the reason experienced kinksters know better than to play drunk.

Hitting someone too hard because you don't give a crap is however clearly assault, and at the very least extremely not okay. Hitting someone too hard because you want them to hurt is abuse and should be criminal, and it's also something that happens. All of the above can be physically the exact same act, good luck telling them apart after the fact

There is a big problem with the case that really everything comes down to intention and the way things happened.

You can basically do a similar analysis of all the rest of the stuff too, even if it gets a little more complicated. People like to do pervy things during sex, that's typically the most fun part. However, the only way to find out what's fun pervy stuff for your partner and what's not for them is typically to either try or ask, and most people try before asking. It's just the way most people are stupid. (I suspect most guys have the experience of trying to do something they needed to apologize for.) But again, some people do pervy stuff they didn't ask about because they don't care about the other person, and some people like to intentionally make the other person feel bad. Again, these can physically be the same act, the difference is in intention and overall vibes, which aren't distinctions easily made years later in a courtroom.

Terrible people unfortunately learn to play in ways where they get to be abusers with plausible deniability. It's extremely well known in kink circles that there are a lot of Doms (sometimes called fake Doms) who routinely ignore safewords, deliberately cross people's borders, break agreements and just otherwise intentionally abuse any trust given, knowing that almost no one ever goes to court over it because it would just be too difficult. (They typically aren't that welcome in regular kink scenes because their reputation precedes them, but instead they loom around the edges and pray on inexperienced subs on the internet.)

It's a very realistic scenario that a similar thing happened here. Get the girl to consent on film, and then deliberately abuse them trusting that the consent videos protect you from any legal problems. (There's also a realistic chance that different guys in the room had different ideas of what was going on there.)

When you add the context that there's a whole history of Canadian junior hockey players being accused of group SA over a very long period of time, it's very plausible that over time this culture has very specifically developed to abuse girls in a way which makes it extremely difficult to make a legal case against them. Unfortunately bad guys do actually share notes about this stuff.

I think it's good that this case is in court and in the limelight, regardless of how it ends, but once again, I'm very sceptical that it's in any way possible to actually figure out with any certainty what went down in that hotel room, and I definitely avoid drawing any personal conclusions. I wasn't in the room, and and I'm not a legal expert. I am very aware that courtrooms historically have kind of a terrible track record in making sensible calls on people's sex lives.

The public discource however is probably a good thing.

Plus, sometimes being stupid, young and drunk can't be a legal defense, even if you accept it as a moral defense.

[GullFoss]

I'm always curious as to who reads those walls of text

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Murph

Reading the CBC’s transcripts, it seems like the details Howden forgets are heavily weighted towards those that might incriminate his buddies as opposed to exonerate them.

Just the same, he told the court that he has not spoken with Dube since 2018.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I'm always curious as to who reads those walls of text

The same sort of people who actually read the article, and not just the headline...

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I'm always curious as to who reads those walls of text

If you don't, you should. They are very informative.

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by Makarov

I'm not trying to throw shade at anyone in particular, but I am often struck by how confident some non-lawyers are in the correctness of their legal opinions when they post in places like this thread.

Its almost like people think that lawyers are all just role-playing or something.

I wish I could be as confident about anything as some posters on this forum are about their beliefs in hockey and which GM or player is an idiot or sucks, let alone the law.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I'm always curious as to who reads those walls of text

Know what much of the analysis and insight in this thread is significantly better and more thoughtful than what you get in the mainstream media, even platforms like the Globe and Mail.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Know what much of the analysis and insight in this thread is significantly better and more thoughtful than what you get in the mainstream media, even platforms like the Globe and Mail.

Partly because we have a few lawyers familiar enough with the Criminal Code etc and court proceedings to provide that thoughtful analysis!!

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by TOfan

I wish I could be as confident about anything as some posters on this forum are about their beliefs in hockey and which GM or player is an idiot or sucks, let alone the law.

Some GMs suck

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But in practice, it’s not really, is it? I’d be surprised if more than a fraction of the sexual ass-smacking that will place in Canada today has consent provided.

That’s what MBates means when he talks about our sexual consents laws being out of step with how people actually behave, and how a large amount of sexual activity that most Canadians happily participate in without considering it criminal can, by the letter of the law, warrant charges of sexual assault.

Which isn’t to say what Dube did was okay. Just that as much as we want consent laws to be clear and unambiguous, they really can’t be without criminalizing normal behaviour and turning sex into something weirdly formal and procedural.

Exactly. No one is asking for consent for each action. That's just weird.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by Hackey

Exactly. No one is asking for consent for each action. That's just weird.

When you’ve just met the girl and you’ve brought a room full of strong, drunk, young men who are complete strangers and now it’s turned into something far different than a one night stand you might want to be a bit cautious.

It’s stunning to me none of these clowns had the moxie to stand up and say guys this needs to stop, wrap her up in a blanket and protect her.