1 week Ago By Ricky Leong
A jury was chosen Friday to hear the high-profile trial of five former Team Canada world junior hockey players charged with sexual assault. A jury of nine women and five men was picked over the course of the day. A man and a woman were picked as alternate jurors.
As was explained to the jury panel earlier in the day by Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia, 14 jurors are picked for long jury trials, but only 12 will make the final decision at the end of the case. Extra jurors are selected to ensure there will be 12 jurors for the deliberations if for unforeseen circumstances during the trial, a juror can no longer serve and must leave the jury. Before the jury was selected, each player was arraigned on their charges.
Michael McLeod, 27, Alex Formenton, 25, Cal Foote, 26, Dillon Dube, 26 and Carter Hart, 26, are all charged with sexual assault in connection with allegations made by a woman that she was sexually assaulted in June 2018 by several men in a London hotel room after meeting them at a Richmond Row bar and having consensual sex with one of them. McLeod faces an additional sexual assault charge for being a party to the offence. All five pleaded not guilty in loud, clear voices as they stood with their lawyers at their respective defence tables.
The players, part of the gold-medal winning team, were in London for a Hockey Canada gala on June 18 and 19, 2018. Carroccia is expected to give an opening address to the jury on Monday morning. The final jurors were selected late in the day on Friday.
Before they were dismissed for the weekend, Carroccia gave the jury specific instructions. “Please do no search out any information. Please do not read any media accounts, listen to the radio, search out on the Internet, discuss with anyone anything about this case.
You can say ‘I’ve been selected as a juror’ and that’s it,” she said. “If anything of that nature happens or anything that causes you concern over the weekend, when we come back on Monday, you will put it down in writing, put in an envelope and give it to the court officers to provide to me. But please don’t discuss it amongst yourselves,” Carroccia said.
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