Paola Loriggio, Canadian Press Published Friday, May 6, 2022, 5:11 AM EDT Last Updated on Friday, May 6, 2022, 5:49 PM EDT
TORONTO – A young woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted by Canadian musician Jacob Hogard when she was a teenager told a Toronto court that the singer has become an unrecognizable “monster” after he brought her to his hotel room .
The woman, who is one of the two applicants in the trial against Hogard for sexual violence, cried at one point on Friday as she described her meeting with him on 30 September 2016.
She told the court that she was trying to fight Hogard when he started kissing her in his hotel room in Mississauga, Ont., Where he had taken her after he sent a limousine to pick her up from a friend’s house in her hometown. a city north of Toronto. She was 16 then.
She said he pushed her onto the bed as she tried to pull away, holding her and undressing her and taking off his own clothes. Then, she said, he repeatedly raped her vaginally and orally and tried to do it anal for several hours.
At various times, she testified, Hogard pushed her face into the pillows so she couldn’t breathe, spat in his mouth and hit her, calling her a “slut” and a “whore” and telling her she was what she deserved. He did not use a condom, she said.
“I … lie and cry on my back and tell him to stop and he won’t stop,” she said with tears in her eyes, adding that she tried to free herself several times, but was overwhelmed. Her mind eventually “switched off” as she focused on surviving the incident, she testified.
Months earlier, and by the time they reached the hotel room, Hogard had been gentle and caring, emphasizing that he saw a future with her and that she should trust him, the woman said in her testimony. This sudden change seemed like “betrayal,” she said.
“That was the biggest change,” she said. “This man who makes you believe this tale of love and romance, softness and tenderness (transmitted) to this monster by a man who has no compassion, no empathy.”
Prosecutors allege that Hogard, the frontman of the rock band Hedley, forcibly raped two women after taking them to hotels in the Toronto area in separate incidents in 2016. Both applicants traveled outside the city to see him. Neither can be identified under a ban on publication.
A coherent statement of facts states that Hogard had a “sexual encounter” with each of the applicants on the days when they came to his hotel.
The singer pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm and one charge of sexual intercourse, a charge involving sexual contact with a person under the age of 16.
At the booth on Friday, the woman said she managed to pick up her cell phone after Hogard went to the bathroom. She recalled sending messages to a friend who knew she was dating the singer, and asked that friend to call, pretending it was her job.
After Hogard came out of the bathroom, she told him she had to go to work early, and he called the limousine driver to get her back, the woman said.
While they waited, she said, Hogard tried to have a conversation and joke with her, talking about a recent vacation and “slowly returning to the person I recognize,” she said.
When they separated, the musician said he was glad she had come and hoped to see her again, she testified. Meanwhile, she said: “I think I just want to get out of here, don’t touch me, don’t talk to me.
The woman said Hogard sent her a message while she was in the limousine, but she blocked it on all platforms. They never spoke again and she never went to another Hadley concert, she said.
The driver took her to her boyfriend’s house, she said. The woman said she told her friend what had happened, and her friend offered to take a shower.
As she undressed, she noticed that her underwear was “full of blood,” the woman said. According to her, she has bruises on her back, buttocks and legs and pain in various places.
She waited more than a week to tell her mother what had happened, and went to the hospital a few days later, she said.
The woman said she did not initially report it to police because she simply wanted to move on, but it “did not work” and she experienced flashbacks, panic attacks and nightmares. She finally announced it in 2018.
During cross-examination, the woman admitted that she could have left the hotel room while Hogard was in the bathroom. But she said she did not know how to get home and it did not occur to her to call a taxi because she had never called before. She was also worried that Hogard noticed he was trying to leave, she said.
The defense also suggested she could have called someone else or even 911, but the woman said she did not want to involve police at the time. The friend she texted was one of two people who knew where she was and the person who was likely to respond quickly, she said.
Defense attorney Megan Savard also suggested that the woman took a screenshot of some of the text messages she exchanged with Hogard and handed them over to police, but did not include reports that she would have come to Toronto to has a sexual encounter with Hogard.
The woman rejected the offer, saying she had only taken pictures of early reports of excitement and that after the September 30 incident, she could no longer bear to review their conversations.
Earlier in her testimony, the woman described a meeting with Hogard at the age of 12 and began communicating directly with him after a meeting and greeting when she was 15.
She told the court that over time, their conversations became more sexual, especially after they started using Snapchat, an application where messages and images are only visible for a short time. Eventually, the couple exchanged nude photos and Hoghard sent her a video of her masturbating, she testified.
The woman said Hogard had also sent her romantic messages, saying he loved her and saw a future with her.
A few weeks after they started texting, he arranged for her and two friends to come and see Hadley in Toronto and gave them backstage passes, she said. He allegedly touched her buttocks while behind the scenes.
The young woman told the court that they then tried to organize a day of shopping and sightseeing in Toronto a few days later, but the plan failed.
She and Hogard kept in touch during the summer, and he even called to wish her a happy birthday when she turned 16, she testified.
Eventually, they rescheduled their meeting for a day in September, and the woman said she expects to stick to the original plan for shopping, lunch and sightseeing, adding that she believes other group members and their manager will be present. .
Based on the nature of some of their lyrics, she thought there was an opportunity for Hogard to “try something,” but she expected nothing but an attempt to kiss her, she told the court.
However, she believed that if he said no, “he will respect that” and their day will go according to plan, she said. When she was brought to his hotel, the woman said she believed they only met there and would go elsewhere.
The case resumes on Monday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 6, 2022.
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