A jury has found Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard not guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman in northeastern Ontario eight years ago.
Over the course of the trial, jurors had heard the complainant’s emotional account of her encounter with Hoggard in Kirkland Lake, Ont., and her allegations that he raped, choked, slapped and urinated on her. They also heard Hoggard’s own dramatically different account of what he characterized as a consensual one-night stand.
Here’s a look at what the jury didn’t hear:
Hoggard was already convicted in another trial
A Toronto jury found Hoggard guilty of sexual assault causing bodily harm against an Ottawa woman in June 2022, an offence the presiding judge called a “particularly degrading rape.”
Hoggard was acquitted of the same charge in connection with a teenage fan. He was also found not guilty of sexual interference, a charge that relates to the sexual touching of someone under 16, in connection with the teen fan when she was 15.
The two complainants in that case alleged they experienced violent rapes that involved slapping, spitting in their mouths, calling them derogatory names and restricting their breathing.
The Ottawa woman also said Hoggard dragged her into the bathroom and asked her to urinate on him, then said he would urinate on her, both of which she refused.
In that trial, defence lawyer Megan Savard argued that the younger complainant made up her story in part because she regretted cheating on her boyfriend at the time. Savard made a similar argument in regards to the complainant in the latest trial.
Hoggard is already behind bars
After his 2022 conviction in Toronto, Hoggard was released on bail pending an appeal. The Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld Hoggard’s conviction in mid-August, at which point the singer began serving his five-year prison sentence.
In September, Hoggard filed for leave to appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Appeal Court dismissed a further application for bail pending the outcome of that case, saying it appeared “unlikely” the top court would hear the matter.
Hoggard wasn’t to be seen in his prison garb
As the latest trial began in Haileybury, a community in northeastern Ontario, lawyers discussed the logistics involved in preventing jurors from seeing Hoggard in his prison garb, since he was being transported from behind bars to the courtroom for the proceedings.
It was decided that Hoggard would arrive early and change into a dark suit for the trial.
On the third day of the trial, before the jury was brought in, Crown prosecutor Peter Keen alerted the judge to a potential issue: he had heard second-hand that a juror may have seen Hoggard being escorted by a security sergeant “in shackles.”
After further investigation, Hoggard’s defence lawyer told the judge she was confident it was of no major concern.
“They were in the hallway at the same time, but blocked by a court services officer and a staircase,” she said.
The spectre of other cases almost derailed the trial
During her testimony in the latest trial, the complainant, whose account shared some similarities with those of the other women, at one point referred to other “cases.”
As Savard, Hoggard’s defence lawyer, asked what sort of research the woman had done to support her recollections, the complainant said, “it was too difficult for me to read the stories of other women,” and, “I was told through CBC what had happened.”
The jury was asked to leave the room. Justice Robin Tremblay said he was “very concerned” about the line of questioning. The Crown prosecutor said the complainant had been asked not to speak about prior cases, and after consulting amongst themselves the defence team decided it would not seek a mistrial.
“Although prior discreditable conduct is the kind of evidence which if leaked before the jury could give rise to a mistrial … a strong curative instruction from Your Honour would be sufficient in this case,” Savard said.
When the complainant was brought back in, the judge told her not to talk about Hoggard’s conduct towards other people. And when the jury was brought in, they were told to “completely disregard” anything the complainant said she learned through CBC.
Hoggard’s reaction to the complainant’s testimony was brought up
Before the trial even began, Keen, the prosecutor, told court he needed additional time to speak with the complainant because she wasn’t doing well in advance of her testimony. At almost every break from her testimony, during which she held a red stress ball the jury couldn’t see and frequently broke down in tears, the Crown, defence or judge commented on how she was doing.
But Hoggard’s demeanour also became the subject of a brief snafu between parties.
During a particularly tense moment of cross-examination, when Savard was accusing the complainant of giving “wrong” answers under oath, Keen stood to say something to her. Tremblay asked the jury to leave the room.
Savard’s co-counsel, Kally Ho, told the judge it looked like Keen was “seeking to correct her,” or “curtail” the cross-examination.
Keen said there was nothing wrong with the cross-examination. Instead, he hoped Savard could talk to her client. He heard Hoggard reacting to the complainant’s testimony with “quick exhalations that were quite loud,” he said, and he worried the jury was hearing it.
Ho said she heard the jury making similar noises and it was a “very natural reaction,” not a scoff or cough or sigh.
Tremblay ultimately decided not to bring the issue up in front of jurors. He only told them Keen’s unusual intervention did not have anything to do with the way Savard was conducting her cross-examination.
Some prospective jurors knew too much
During the jury selection process, which took the better part of a day, some potential jurors were dismissed because they seemed too familiar with Hoggard’s history.
One man told Tremblay right off the bat that he had been following Hoggard’s case from the get-go because his daughter had been a Hedley fan.
He pointedly noted in front of court that Hoggard had already been convicted, and suggested he wouldn’t make a very good juror. The judge agreed.
Tremblay told jurors at the outset of the trial that they must not seek out any information about Hoggard or do research about the case, and that they should disregard any media reports they came across.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 4, 2024.
