The world juniors sexual assault trial will proceed with only the judge, after the jury was dismissed.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia’s made the decision early Friday shortly after court proceedings got underway for the day.
“I have determined in this case that it is appropriate to discharge the jury,” Carroccia said to the jury, thanking the 14 members and dismissing them.
The jury had spent the past two-and-a-half weeks in a London, Ont., courtroom hearing the Crown’s evidence in the case, including more than a week of testimony from the female complainant at the centre of the allegations against five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team.
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Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have all pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault stemming from what the Crown alleges was non-consensual group sex in McLeod’s room at the Delta hotel in London in June 2018.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a standard publication ban and is identified as E.M. in court documents, testified for two days before facing sometimes tense cross-examination from defence lawyers for each of the accused. She was allowed to finish testifying Wednesday.
Former world juniors team member Tyler Steenbergen, who has not been charged, had been testifying for a second day Thursday when proceedings were halted.
A mistrial was declared in late April just three days into proceedings. At that time, the Crown had presented its opening statement and had begun to lay out its evidence in the case.
A trial for the case was expected to last eight weeks total.
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