The Globe
and Mail has reported today (January 24, 2024) that 5 players from the 2018
Canada World Junior hockey team have been told to surrender to London Police in
order to face charges of sexual assault. In light of this news, this
office, having previously represented the complainant in this matter, has
received numerous requests for comment. This is that comment and public
reply.
The office of Beckett Personal Injury Lawyers represented the affected young woman during her initial response to this incident and during the civil litigation that occurred thereafter. As you are aware, the civil litigation concluded swiftly and some time ago. Though we did have communications with the London Police Services as well as both the internal investigations of Hockey Canada and the National Hockey League, that was neither the focus nor mandate of our retainer. We are no longer retained by this client and consider our work completed. Accordingly, we cannot provide direct comment on her behalf.
That being
said we continue to receive media interest and outreach on this
matter. Without a client to direct our communications, we are
limited in what we can say. This is especially true when our former
client throughout our time representing her was consistent in her desire for
privacy. Therefore, all that we can offer to the media and the public on
the recent events can only come from our position as a law firm with
longstanding and national involvement on the legal issue of sexual assault,
specifically representing only victims and survivors.
Accountability
and deterrence are always concerns of our clients. What happens in these
types of cases cannot be undone. Therefore, a common theme of our
clientele is to ensure that those responsible are held to account and in turn
deterrence is created to ensure such events do not happen to others. Both
the civil and criminal courts offer routes to accountability and deterrence,
each with different means to achieve it. The criminal courts impose their
unique sanctions mostly on individuals. Civil court sanctions are
primarily financial though the civil process can also expose information and
result in institutional and public education on this issue. It is through
adjudication or legal examination of these cases that such learning is
achieved.
In this
particular matter there has been limited legal adjudication. The prospect
of a criminal prosecution offers a more fulsome adjudication. In that
sense this development should be welcomed by anyone wishing to get to the
truth. We expect that due to the subject matter and the high public
profile of this case that some of the facts, like the identities of those
involved, will be veiled. This office does not know the identities of
the 5 players of interest nor are we in a position to share identities of
anyone involved. The criminal law system has mechanisms to deal
with these issues and ask that those be respected and adhered to by all.
In the end,
we hope that renewed coverage of this case will result in renewed conversations
about sexual assault, about institutional cultures, and about how best as a
society we can address such with the goal of reducing both the occurrence of
sexual crimes and also the resulting harm when they do occur. Our
hearts go out to victims and survivors everywhere as they struggle with their
own individual circumstances which news like this can aggravate.
The contact
person for this matter is Robert Talach who can be reached at:
1-866-674-4994 / (519) 673-4994, ext. 31 (w) or (519) 639-2807 (c) or rtalach@beckettinjurylawyers.com
