Ontario woman alleges sexual assault by junior hockey players; details what happened when she called police

By Rick Westhead

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    TORONTO (CTV Network) — Content advisory: This article includes allegations of sexual assault.

The Ontario Provincial Police has acknowledged that one of its employees did not follow the organization’s policy when an alleged victim of sexual assault called a local detachment earlier this year to report an incident involving eight former junior hockey players.

The woman, who is now 32, said she contacted the OPP on Feb. 28 to report an alleged assault in November 2014.

OPP spokeswoman Gosia Puzio wrote in an email to W5 that alleged sexual assault victims in Ontario need to file reports with the police force in the jurisdiction where the alleged assault took place. In this case, a civilian employee breached OPP policy by not remaining on the phone with the alleged victim until they reached the appropriate person.

“In response to your inquiry, the Ontario Provincial Police takes all allegations of sexual assault seriously and recognizes the courage it takes for victims to come forward,” Puzio wrote. “We understand how important it is for victims to feel heard, respected and supported.

“We have reviewed the call made to the [OPP] provincial communications centre in London regarding the historic sexual assault. We can confirm that the civilian call-taker provided the victim with the contact information for the police service of jurisdiction to facilitate their report. However, standard operating procedures state that the call-taker should have personally connected the caller to the police service of jurisdiction, and remained on the line until the call-taker could confirm that a report was being initiated.”

The alleged victim told W5 that after she contacted the police force where her alleged assault took place, she was told they could not help her either. She was told to call police in the community where she now lives.

The alleged victim goes by the pseudonym, Anne Marie.

She said that when she was 22, she was in a consensual relationship with a 19-year-old Ontario Hockey League player for about six months when he invited her to watch TV with one of his teammates at his billet home, the home where he lived during the hockey season.

Anne Marie said when she visited the player and went with him into the basement, there were eight players there. After the 19-year-old player took her into the bathroom, they started fooling around. What began as a consensual act became a group sexual assault, the woman said.

“I was taken into a bathroom,” she said. “And that’s when the player who invited me over began having sex with me — starting sexual acts. They never closed the bathroom door fully… And then next thing I know more players start coming in. There’s players standing and watching. They start taking their turns, doing whatever it is they want.”

Anne Marie said she felt trapped and was assaulted for about 90 minutes. She said she froze and “pretty much blacked out.”

“You’re stuck in the basement with eight junior hockey players,” she said. “Trapped in a corner, literally in the far back room of a basement.”

She said she remembers players referring to each other by their nicknames.

“Pretty quickly it got to the point where I just tried to take my mind somewhere else and tried not even to make eye contact,” she said. “I waited for the first clear out available, which was pretty much after everyone had taken a turn, some more than once. I was brought into the shower. And after that, I felt like I had a chance to get the hell out.”

‘I thought it was my fault’

Anne Marie said she phoned a female friend while she was driving home and told her what had happened. W5 independently contacted that woman, who corroborated her phone call in 2014 with Anne Marie. The friend said she recalled Anne Marie telling her that she didn’t know whether she would contact police because some of the hockey players were 16 and had seemed to be pressured to take part in the assault by the 19-year-old player who invited her to the home.

Anne Marie said she did not tell her family what had happened until this year, after watching a press conference in which London’s chief of police apologized to a different woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by former Canadian world junior players. In that case, five former Team Canada players are awaiting trial for sexual assault.

“I just felt ashamed,” Anne Marie said. “I never told anyone because I thought it was my fault. I thought I was the one that was responsible because I had made the choice to go hang out with this guy and a buddy… It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I had actually realized that it was sexual assault because I had pushed it so far out of my mind. I did what I could to just forget it, not think about it, wipe it away. But it just built up inside in the back of my brain… So it’s only been the past couple years that I’ve actually had the chance to name it and identify it and begin to understand it. And the worst part has been accepting what happened.”

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