THUNDER BAY – On day seven of the trial against two former Ottawa University hockey players charged with sexual assault, the alleged victim stepped down from the witness stand after facing several days of cross-examination.
The two former hockey players, David Foucher, 28, and Guillaume Donovan, 27, are each accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old Thunder Bay woman in a hotel on Feb. 2, 2014.
In a Thunder Bay Courtroom on Tuesday, defense attorney, Celina St. Francois, who is representing Foucher, spent part of the morning cross-examining the alleged victim who first took the witness stand last Thursday.
St. Francois asked the alleged victim about statements she made to investigators and whether or not they were true.
“Do you remember stating on Apr. 5 that what you said in the last statement was the truth?” St. Francois asked, referring to two other meetings the alleged victim had with police on Feb. 28 and Mar. 5. “That what you said in the two previous meetings was the truth?”
“I don’t remember,” she replied.
Many of the questions related to her memory of the night of Feb. 2, if she recalled how many people were in the hotel room, and if she recognized any voices or faces.
The alleged victim testified that she recalls hearing laughter in the room, but could not distinguish any particular voices or faces.
The alleged victim was also questioned about a meeting she had with a nurse at the hospital later in the day on Feb. 3.
“Do you remember saying to the nurse that there had been grabbing or holding?” St. Francois asked.
“I don’t remember saying that,” the alleged victim replied.
“Is it possible you did?” St. Francois continued.
“It’s possible, but I don’t remember what I said to the nurse.”
St. Francois also asked the alleged victim about a friend who informed officials with Ottawa University about the alleged assault and whether or not what she said was the truth about what happened that night.
“You are saying those are all lies if she were to say that, because what she was saying did not occur,” St. Francois asked. “Would that be correct?”
“Yes,” the alleged victim replied.
St. Francois also pointed to the fact that the alleged victim did not want her friend to be part of the investigation, to which she replied that was true because she did not know what her friend was saying.
“You wanted her out of the investigation because she assumes things and says things she doesn’t know?” St. Francois asked.
“Yes.”
During redirect from counsel for the Crown, Marc Hunault, the alleged victim was asked why she was not truthful with police.
She replied by saying she didn’t want things to go further at that time or anyone to get hurt.
When asked why she continued conversations with Collins after the incident, during which she told Collins she would say as little as possible to investigators, she replied by saying she did not want people in the room to be wrongfully accused, because she did not know who was in the room.
“I didn’t want what happened to be told in the wrong way or untruthfully,” she said. “I didn’t want it to be pointed at me that I was this girl lying about what’s happening.”
A friend of the victim who picked her up from the hotel that night and took her to the hospital was called by the crown to testify late Tuesday morning.
She opened her testimony by describing the alleged victim as ‘emotionally distraught’ when she arrived at the hotel after the alleged assault.
“She was not calm, not really herself,” she said. “She got in the car quite quick, slammed the door, just asking me to leave. She was frantic. I could tell she had been crying.”
Cross-examination of the witness will continue Tuesday afternoon.
