Ruling expected on text exchange
WARNING: This post contains graphic details.
Hello. My name is Mark Gollom and I’m a senior reporter. I’ll be reporting from the courtroom today.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia is expected to rule this morning on the admissibility of a text message exchange between former world junior hockey teammates Brett Howden and Taylor Raddysh shortly after the alleged sexual assaults in 2018.
Both Howden, who plays for the Vegas Golden Knights, and Raddysh, who plays for the Washington Capitals, have been Crown witnesses in this trial but neither has been charged with anything.
Howden and Raddysh, court has heard, were in the London,Ont., hotel room where the sexual assaults on the complainant, known as E.M., are alleged to have occurred in June 2018.
Thursday’s proceedings were taken up mostly by legal arguments from the Crown and defence over the admission of these text messages between Howden and Raddysh.
The Crown is seeking to have these text messages entered into evidence and to cross-examine Howden about these messages.
One of the text messages the Crown is keen on questioning Howden about and entering into evidence is one that involves Howden’s comments to Raddysh regarding the alleged slap of the complainant’s buttocks by one of the defendants, Dillon Dubé.
.In one of the messages, Howden says: “Dude, I’m so happy I left when all the shit went down.”
“Man, when I was leaving, Duber [Dubé] was smacking this girl’s ass so hard. Like it looked like it hurt so bad,” Howden texted.
Assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham has argued that Howden was being truthful when he sent those text messages. Howden also told court that he believed he was being truthful when he wrote those messages, but has repeatedly said he can’t recall those messages.
Defence lawyers have countered that the text exchange is not necessarily an accurate reflection of what Howden remembered from that night.