Complainant breaks down as cross-examination resumes in Hoggard sexual assault trial

WARNING — The following details of the sexual assault case may be disturbing, discretion is advised.

The emotional cross-examination of the woman accusing Jacob Hoggard of sexual assault concluded at his trial Friday, as the Canadian musician’s defence lawyer questioned the quality of the complainant’s memory, highlighted a lack of documentation to support her account and accused her of changing her story for the jury’s benefit. 

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, alleges Hoggard raped, choked, slapped and urinated on her in his hotel room after she attended his band’s concert and a bonfire after-party in Kirkland Lake, Ont., eight years ago.

Her testimony at the court in Haileybury, a community in northeastern Ontario, has spanned most of the week. It concluded at the end of the day on Friday, and the Crown indicated it would not call further witnesses.

Hoggard, the lead singer of the band Hedley, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual assault. 

The defence and Crown agree that a sexual encounter between Hoggard and the woman took place. Prosecutors are seeking to prove that the complainant did not give consent. 

The woman broke down in sobs and requested a break about 20 minutes into the day while under intense questioning Friday from defence lawyer Megan Savard about her memories of the alleged assault. 

The woman had testified earlier this week that Hoggard took out a guitar when they entered his hotel room, and that she expected him to play music, but that he put it down immediately and started removing her clothing despite her saying she felt uncomfortable. 

Savard suggested that what actually happened was that Hoggard played some songs for her, which the woman denied.

“You’re skipping over that fact for the jury because you think that hurts your case,” Savard said.

“No,” said the woman. 

“It sounds pretty romantic,” the defence lawyer said. 

“No,” repeated the complainant. 

“And you don’t want to admit to the jury that you were in a romantic situation with this —”

“No,” the woman interrupted forcefully. 

“— with this man when you had a boyfriend,” Savard continued.

“I thought of my boyfriend,” the complainant said, beginning to cry. “But nothing of it was romantic or anything that I wanted. I didn’t ask for this to happen to me.” 

Savard went on to ask for specifics about how the complainant’s clothes were removed. The complainant had previously said she didn’t remember how exactly it happened. 

On Friday morning, she suggested her skirt had been pulled down, but under questioning from Savard the woman later agreed that the method of removal was just a “guess,” and that her memories of that part of the night are “blurry.” 

“I’m suggesting to you that the clothes that you have no memory of him taking off were clothes that you assisted in removing,” Savard said.

The complainant denied the suggestion.  

As Savard continued to push on whether the woman’s testimony was based on emotions rather than recall, the complainant collapsed into tears and requested some time away from the courtroom. When Savard later continued, the woman agreed several times that some of her testimony was based on what she thought, felt or assumed happened. 

Savard revisited the lead-up to the alleged assault and suggested that several elements of it had been consensual — the removal of clothing, Hoggard taking a photo of the woman with his guitar and then filming her as he asked for her age. 

The complainant maintained it was not consensual but said she couldn’t remember certain details for sure, such as whether she provided her age or not. Court has heard that she was 19 at the time. 

The woman cried throughout questioning about her body positioning during the alleged rape and the length of time she was pinned down on the bed. 

Savard suggested that several of the body configurations the complainant had described were “physically impossible” — that she could not have been struck on the bottom during a part of the alleged rape when she was supposedly lying on her back, and that she could not have been choked for four minutes without losing consciousness.

The back-and-forth about positioning seemed to confuse the complainant at times. The lawyer retorted, at one point: “I’m asking you as someone with a human body and a sense of space and time to agree or disagree.”

In later re-examination, Crown attorney Peter Keen confirmed with the complainant that she was not in the same position for the entirety of the alleged vaginal rape. 

The complainant had told court that sometime following the alleged assault, she spent at least two hours in the bathroom repeatedly throwing up. Asked Friday whether it was possible she slept in the hotel room, she said no. 

Savard then read out several sections of the woman’s January 2022 police statement, in which she referenced having spent part of the night sleeping. 

The complainant left that out, Savard suggested, because she thought sleeping over “looks bad” and she’d have to explain it to the jury. The woman denied that but acknowledged she “wouldn’t have remembered” that part if Savard hadn’t brought it up.

Hoggard’s lawyer also questioned the complainant over the red marks she said she saw on her body after the alleged assault. 

The lawyer noted inconsistencies between the woman’s police statement, in which she did not disclose any medical visits, and a CBC News story published a few months later that paraphrased her as saying she had visited a medical centre days after the alleged assault. 

CBC reported that it could not verify if there was a record of her visit to the centre. 

Savard suggested the records do not exist.

The complainant denied that and maintained Friday that she sought medical attention at the centre and at a hospital emergency room sometime after the event, but that she didn’t remember when and it might not have been “right away.” 

She said after reviewing the police transcript that when she told the detective she didn’t seek medical attention, she was telling him “that I didn’t go to the hospital on my way home.” 

Savard pushed back. She said the complainant knew that medical records were something that the police could have used as evidence in their investigation. 

“You gave the police no reason to think there were medical records out there to collect, right?” Savard said.

“That was not my intention, but yes, this is what happened,” the woman said. 

A journal the complainant wrote about the incident would have been useful to police, Savard said, but the woman burned it sometime before pressing charges. The complainant confirmed she wrote the journal and that she burned it after her therapist said “it would be a spiritual way to let go of the evil.” 

Savard also noted that the complainant had previously told police about deleting text messages with another person from the bonfire, and that she told police she “lost” a video from the bonfire. “I must have deleted it,” the woman said Friday. “I don’t know.” 

In the re-examination, Keen asked the complainant whether she intended to report the crime to police at the time she burned the diary and deleted things from her phone. She said no. 

Savard also suggested the woman had been doing research to shore up her story. Though the complainant had earlier said “looking up things brings up too much trauma,” she agreed she researched some details about the hotel and the location of the bonfire. 

The trial is set to continue Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.