RECAP | Woman says defence's questions in world junior sex assault trial are an attempt to 'discredit' her

Brown has finished his cross-examination for today. He’ll pick up where he left off when proceedings resume at 10:30 a.m. ET on Monday – about 30 minutes later than usual.

We’ll continue our coverage next week.

The friend DM’ed E.M. just after 9 a.m. ET the next day — June 19, 2018. She asks E.M. if she made it home OK.

E.M. says she did, then asks her friend how she was doing.

The friend’s texts back and says it seemed as if E.M. was “having a blast” with “those guys.”

“Haha ya they were funny,” E.M. answers back.

In court, Brown asked E.M. why she didn’t say anything else about what happened at the hotel.

“Something horrible happened to me. I felt so much shame…,” she tells the lawyer.

The friend was a co-worker, a relative stranger, she adds.

“Shame and embarrassment for the choices you made,” Brown says.

“No! I’d like to finish,” E.M. says emphatically.

“I made the choice to dance with them and drink at the bar and not make the choice to have them do what they did to me at the hotel."

The friend then texts E.M. just after midnight, telling her things were getting “awks” (awkward) with the co-workers they were out with and asking her to come back.

She asks E.M.: “Where u go!! I wanna take a shot,” and then there’s a Messenger audio call from her friend that E.M. didn’t pick up.

Three more texts from the friend follow:

“!!!”

“Shots!!”

“Come back here then we go take a shot”

E.M. says she doesn’t remember those but she was drunk and with McLeod.

The DMs between E.M. and her friend that night are full of exclamation marks and emojis (lots of laughing emojis, for example).

In one text, E.M.’s friend asks her where she is at one point: “Let me know if you want me to get u from the guy!!”

E.M. replies:

“Haha ok than youuu!! I’m ok for now but i’ll let you know for sure"

Then: "I’ll come back soon!”

E.M. has testified she didn’t remember texting anyone at Jack's bar.

On a screen in the courtroom, Brown shows direct messages (DMs) on Facebook Messenger between E.M. and one of the work friends who was out with her that night.

In the texts, the two talk about what outfits they’ll be wearing, how they’ll get to the bar and what they’re drinking before they get there.

Brown suggests E.M. didn’t tell anyone about the bouncer because he wouldn’t support her story about being drunk.

“How long did you speak to the bouncer?” Brown asks her.

“Since I didn’t even remember speaking to him, I have no idea,” she answers.

On the surveillance video, she speaks to the bouncer for about seven minutes. We know that at 1:21 a.m., McLeod is on the dance floor with his buddies, dancing, because they took videos on their phones.

She tells Brown she looks visibly drunk in the video of herself speaking with the bouncer.

Brown plays another video taken close to 1:20 a.m. ET. E.M. is again seen speaking to her bouncer friend near the ATMs.

She said earlier she only spoke to him earlier in the night, and didn’t even remember that until she saw a video of that interaction until March 2025 when she was preparing for the trial.

“You said you didn’t see him for the rest of the night?” Brown says.

“It just shows how much I was out of it. I didn’t even know I saw him again,” E.M. says.

Proceedings are expected to last until 4:30 p.m. ET.

We are taking the afternoon recess. Court resumes around 3:50. ET.

Assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham is being much more vocal today, objecting to more of Brown’s questions and how he’s asking them.

Just now, she objected because Brown asked E.M. why she was doing something, and she told him why she thought she was doing it. But he told her that’s not what he wanted, that he wanted to know what she remembered.

When Cunningham objects, she stands up and says, “That’s not appropriate,” or something similar.

She doesn’t say, “Objection, your honour!” the way you might see on TV shows like Law and Order.