WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect people who have been sexually abused or know someone affected by it.
Prosecutors for Jacob Hoggard’s sexual assault trial suggested on Wednesday that Hedley’s leader lied about his encounters with a teenage fan and a young woman, pointing to several other cases in which he lied to get out of “difficult situations”.
For more than a day as a witness, Hoggard, 37, admitted that he lied to the youngest complainant in the weeks and months leading up to her meeting at a hotel, telling her that he loved her and proposed the idea of marriage and a future together so I could. have sex with her.
Hoggard also admitted that he lied to the second complainant, an Ottawa woman who was 20 at the time, when he said he cared about her and was there for her while apologizing during a phone call a few days after their meeting. . In fact, he didn’t particularly enjoy his company and blocked his number after that call, he said.
He lied to the complainants to get them out of his hotel room after each meeting, he told the court. And he lied to his partners, including his wife, about hiding his infidelity for more than a decade of touring with Hedley, deleting sex messages, photos and videos, and keeping numbers of women on his phone with male names, he said.
In her cross-examination on Wednesday, Crown attorney Kelly Slate suggested that Hoggard’s account of consensual sex with whistleblowers was just another lie.
Hoggard and his wife, Rebekah Asselstine, arrive at the Ontario Supreme Court in Toronto on Wednesday. (Esteban Cuevas / CBC)
“I’m just telling the truth right now,” he replied.
Hoggard, who was born and raised in the Lower Mainland of BC, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference. .
Prosecutors allege that he repeatedly raped two women, one of whom was 16 at the time, in two separate incidents in the fall of 2016. The complainants, who had traveled from outside the city to meet with he was left bleeding and bruised, according to the Crown. .
He did not consent
Complainants stated that they cried and said no during the meetings, which took place in hotel rooms in the Toronto area.
The younger complainant, who met Hoggard because she had been a Hedley fan for a long time, testified that he raped her vaginally and orally and tried to do so anally in September 2016. She told the court who tried to fight him at various times, but was overwhelmed.
The second complainant met Hoggard through the Tinder dating app while the band was in Ottawa. She stated that she agreed to meet with him in Toronto to have sex in November 2016, but did not consent to what happened at the hotel, and told the court that she was raped anal, vaginal and oral.
They both remembered that Hoggard spat in their mouths, slapped them, and called them “whores” and “whores.” The first complainant alleged that he also pushed his face against the pillows, making it difficult for him to breathe.
The second complainant said Hoggard drowned her so much that she feared for her life. At one point, she alleged, he dragged her by the legs to the bathroom and asked her to urinate, which she refused to do.
Hoggard is also accused of throbbing the plaintiff teenager after a Hedley show in April 2016, when he was still 15 years old.
At the stand on Tuesday, the singer categorically denied having raped the complainants, saying both meetings were consensual and “passionate”.
Hoggard further denied that any of the complainants cried or said no, and maintained that he relied on verbal and nonverbal cues to measure consent with each of them.
He acknowledged that some of the acts described by the complainants may have occurred, and noted that spitting, slapping, insulting and urinating were among his sexual preferences. But he said restricting breathing and causing pain were not things he liked.
The driver of the limousine declares
Hoggard also said he had no detailed recollection of the meetings, but had no doubt they were consensual.
Prosecutors on Wednesday suggested that Hoggard, who had been accustomed to fame since Hedley’s success in 2004, was unaccustomed to being told no.
“You didn’t care, you still have what you wanted,” Slate said Wednesday in his cross-examination.
“That’s not true,” Hoggard said.
Meanwhile, the defense asked Hoggard how he could be sure that the meetings were consensual given his limited memory. The singer said he remembered a positive experience and that his practice was to communicate with sexual partners.
“I know that’s how people treat me,” he said.
The court also met a limousine driver on Wednesday who drove the younger complainant to and from the Hoggard hotel.
Steven Wigoda said the teen was “very calm” during the trip back home in North Toronto, but it seemed normal.
He also denied making a stop at a stop along the way, as the complainant has stated, saying he would have written it to his record if they had done so.
The Crown and defense are expected to make their final communications on Friday, and jury deliberations could begin as early as Monday.
Support is available to anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access local crisis lines and support services through this Government of Canada website or he Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety or the safety of others around you, call 911.