TORONTO — A young woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard when she was a teenager told a Toronto court the singer turned into an unrecognizable “monster” after bringing her to his hotel room.
The woman, who is one of two complainants in Hoggard’s sex assault trial, at one point broke down in tears Friday as she described her encounter with him on Sept. 30, 2016.
She told the court she tried to fight off Hoggard as he began to kiss her in his Mississauga, Ont., hotel room, where he had taken her after sending a limousine to pick her up from a friend’s house in her hometown north of Toronto. She was 16 at the time.
She said he pushed her onto the bed as she tried to back away, held her down and undressed her and took his own clothes off. Then, she said, he repeatedly raped her vaginally and orally, and attempted to do so anally, over several hours.
At various points, she testified, Hoggard pushed her face into the pillows so she couldn’t breathe, spit in her mouth and slapped her, called her a “slut” and a “whore,” and told her it was what she deserved. He didn’t use a condom, she said.
“I’m … lying there crying on my back and telling him to stop and he wouldn’t stop,” she said tearfully, adding that she tried to break free on several occasions but was overpowered. Her mind eventually “shut down” as she focused on surviving the incident, she testified.
For months earlier, and up until they reached the hotel room, Hoggard had been affectionate and caring, stressing that he saw a future with her and she should trust him, the woman said in her testimony. This sudden change felt like a “betrayal,” she said.
“That’s where the biggest shift was,” she said. “This person who makes you believe this fairy tale about love and romance and softness and gentleness (turned in) to this monster of a human who has no compassion, no empathy.”
Prosecutors allege Hoggard, the frontman for the rock band Hedley, violently raped two women after bringing them to Toronto-area hotels in separate incidents in 2016. Both complainants had travelled from out of town to see him.
An agreed statement of facts says Hoggard had a “sexual encounter” with each of the complainants on the days they came to his hotel.
The singer has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm and one of sexual interference, a charge that refers to the sexual touching of someone under the age of 16.
Earlier in her testimony, the complainant described meeting Hoggard in a hotel parking lot after an out-of-town concert she attended at age 12, and starting to communicate directly with him after a meet-and-greet event when she was 15.
She told the court their conversations grew more sexual over time, particularly after they started using Snapchat, an app where messages and images are only briefly visible. Eventually the pair exchanged nude photos, and Hoggard sent her a video of himself masturbating, she testified.
The woman said Hoggard also sent her romantic messages, saying he loved her and saw a future with her.
A few weeks after they began texting, he arranged for her and two friends to come see Hedley in Toronto and gave them backstage passes, she said.
Once backstage, she said Hoggard touched her buttocks repeatedly, which made her uncomfortable. She said she tried to move away or grab his wrist in the hopes that he would understand she wanted him to stop.
In testimony Friday, the young woman told the court they tried to arrange a day of shopping and sightseeing in Toronto at some point in the weeks that followed, but the plan fell through.
Over the summer, she and Hoggard kept in touch, and he even called to wish her a happy birthday when she turned 16, she testified.
“When he called you on your birthday, did he know how old you were turning?” Crown attorney Kelly Slate asked.
“Yup,” she replied.
They eventually rescheduled their meeting for a day in September, and the woman said she expected they would stick to the original plan of shopping, lunch and sightseeing, adding she thought the other band members and their manager would be present.
Based on the nature of some of their texts, she thought there was a possibility Hoggard would “try something,” but didn’t anticipate anything beyond an attempt to kiss her, she told court.
Even so, she thought that if she said no, “he would respect that” and their day would go on as planned, she said.
Even after she was brought to his hotel, the woman said she believed they were only meeting there and would be going elsewhere.
In its opening statement Thursday, the Crown said the second complainant met Hoggard in November after crossing paths with him on Tinder while Hedley was in Ottawa.
Later that month, they made plans to meet in Toronto, and the Crown alleges Hoggard raped her “over and over” during an hours-long encounter in his downtown hotel.
Both complainants were left bleeding, bruised and sore, prosecutors allege. Neither can be identified under a publication ban.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2022.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
