Jacob Hoggard trial: Defence suggests complainant made up ‘tales’ to get ‘revenge’ on Hoggard

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TORONTO — Defence attorneys recommended Wednesday that an Ottawa lady fabricated rape allegations about Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard as a “type of revenge” after he bodily injured her throughout consensual intercourse and damage her emotions.

Attorneys for Hoggard questioned the girl, who’s the second complainant within the trial, about her encounter with the Hedley frontman and their communications afterward, which included textual content messages and a telephone name.

The lady, now in her late 20s, has testified she got here throughout the singer on the courting app Tinder in November 2016 and, weeks later, agreed to fulfill him in Toronto to have intercourse. However she stated she didn’t consent to what transpired in his lodge room.

She informed the court docket Hoggard raped her anally, vaginally and orally and at one level choked her so arduous she thought she would possibly die. She was left bleeding and with bruises, she stated.

Hoggard texted her after she left the lodge, and a couple of day later, the girl despatched him a message saying that he had raped her and asking to speak on the telephone, she stated. She stated the decision occurred within the days following the encounter and was very transient — about 30 seconds lengthy.

Throughout cross-examination Wednesday, defence lawyer Megan Savard recommended the complainant was upset with Hoggard in the course of the name as a result of he appeared to now not be all for her.

“You’re additionally upset, I’m going to counsel, that he injured you in the midst of consensual intercourse, you thought he was being thoughtless to not verify in with you and it added to the damage emotions you had on account of having been basically dropped by this rock star,” Savard stated.

The complainant was adamant that wasn’t the case and that she needed him to apologize.

At one other level in her cross-examination, Savard recommended the girl needed retribution.

“If he wasn’t going to maintain speaking to you, you had been going to make up tales about him as a type of revenge,” the lawyer stated.

“If he wasn’t going to apologize for raping me, I used to be going to inform folks about it,” the complainant replied.

Hoggard has pleaded not responsible to 2 counts of sexual assault inflicting bodily hurt and one in every of sexual interference, a cost that pertains to the sexual touching of somebody beneath 16.

An agreed assertion of information says he had a sexual encounter with every of the complainants on separate events within the fall of 2016.

On Wednesday, the complainant sobbed closely on the stand as a recording of her name with Hoggard was performed in court docket, prompting Ontario Superior Courtroom Justice Gillian Roberts to twice counsel suspending cross-examination.

“This was a really traumatizing occasion for me and I spent six years of my life making an attempt to dam it out,” the complainant stated, including it was troublesome to listen to Hoggard’s voice on the decision.

Within the roughly 15-minute recording, Hoggard spoke calmly and in a soothing tone, saying the girl’s allegation by textual content “got here out of left discipline” and that he thought they “had a very nice time collectively.”

The lady, whose voice sounded strained and distraught, stated “not precisely” and added that she skilled severe ache in the course of the encounter and afterward.

One other time, Hoggard stated he had been attentive all through the encounter.

“Between you and I, it was very apparent that I used to be paying shut consideration to the way you felt and wasn’t ignoring the way you felt. Except you are feeling in any other case however that will utterly shock me,” he stated on the decision.

“I assume I simply have a special opinion than you do,” the girl responded.

At varied factors, she indicated his phrases sounded rehearsed or coached, and recommended he was making an attempt to guard himself.

Throughout cross-examination, Savard recommended the girl had misrepresented the size, context and contents of the decision, denying that Hoggard expressed concern for her and claiming that he’d blocked her afterward, with a purpose to win over the jury.

“You tried to consider how a rapist would reply?and informed that story to the jury,” Savard stated.

“No, he’s the one rapist I do know,” the girl stated.

The defence additionally indicated the girl informed Hoggard she wanted stitches in her vagina, which was false, and that she was going to contact a lawyer if he didn’t apologize.

She acknowledged she lied to Hoggard in the course of the name about needing stitches and presumably contacting a lawyer in an effort to get him to apologize.

“I used to be making an attempt to get him to confess what he did to me” and to acknowledge its severity, she stated.

Courtroom has heard that, sooner or later, the girl reached out to Hoggard’s ex-girlfriend, now his spouse, via direct message on Instagram and requested if she had the same expertise with him.

“She informed me that he had achieved this to different folks, in that dialog,” she informed jurors.

“You’re speaking about his spouse, who’s sitting in court docket proper now?” Savard requested.

“Completely. After which she informed me that I wanted to go to the police,” and to the physician to get checked for sexually transmitted infections, the girl replied.

Sitting in court docket, Hoggard’s spouse, Rebekah Asselstine, appeared shocked and stared forward along with her mouth agape.

Savard later confirmed the girl a screenshot of an trade between her and Asselstine and recommended Asselstine solely stated she had been contacted by others about Hoggard dishonest on her, however by no means about him hurting anybody.

The lady did an nameless interview with the CBC concerning her allegations in 2018, and later filed a report with police.

The complainant is predicted to return to the stand on Friday.

The opposite complainant, who was 16 on the time, has testified that Hoggard raped her vaginally and orally, and tried to take action anally, on Sept. 30, 2016.

Neither complainant might be recognized beneath a publication ban.