WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it
A woman accusing Jacob Hoggard of sexual assault told a northern Ontario court the musician raped, hit and choked her before urinating on her in a hotel room after she attended his band’s concert and an after-party eight years ago.
During tearful testimony Wednesday, the woman told the jury she was terrified by Hoggard during the June 2016 encounter, repeatedly tried to get away from him and told him to stop.
“He called me names,” she recalled. “He called me a ‘dirty little piggy.’ He called me a ‘dirty pig’ repeatedly. He imitated pig sounds.”
During the alleged choking that followed, the woman, whose name is protected by a publication ban, said, “I remember seeing his bright eyes that still haunt me to this day.”
Hoggard, the former lead singer of the band Hedley, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual assault in the trial that’s taking place in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Temiskaming Shores, Ont., a community roughly 150 kilometres northeast of Sudbury.
The Crown and defence agree on some of the circumstances of the case, including that Hoggard was in nearby Kirkland Lake for a Hedley concert.
The woman who accused former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard of sexual assault told her story in Northern Ont. court, testifying in detail about an encounter eight years ago that she alleges was not consensual.
An agreed statement of facts has established that the band attended a bonfire with fans outside the hotel where they were staying after the concert, and that Hoggard and the complainant, who was 19 years old at the time, had a sexual encounter in his hotel room.
Prosecutors are seeking to prove that what happened during that encounter wasn’t consensual.
In earlier testimony on Tuesday, the woman described attending the bonfire with other teen girls and Hedley band members. She said Hoggard told her to stay, that they would play music and have a conversation.
On Wednesday, the woman repeatedly broke down in tears while testifying as Crown attorney Peter Keen brought her through the events that followed.
The complainant said Hoggard told her to follow him into his hotel room, and she saw other band members waiting by their hotel room doors in the hallway. When they got into the room, Hoggard immediately took out an acoustic guitar, she said. “I was really happy that we were going to be playing music.”
But then he put it down, she said, and told her that she was being “too ‘talky talky.”‘
She testified that as he then removed her tank top, bra and skirt, she told him to stop. She said she felt “violated” and moved to cover her breasts. He used the guitar to push her onto the bed and took a photo of her, she said, and repeatedly asked for her age, which she didn’t recall if she provided.
The woman alleged that Hoggard next tried to kiss her, to which she said, “I’m really not interested.”
The complainant said she tried to use her elbows to push him off her, but he had her pinned down and was “too strong.” He flipped her over and put his hand under her jaw, she said, maintaining pressure for what she said was about four minutes.
“He raped me vaginally and I felt stuck,” she said. “I did not consent to that.”
“I was crying… I was terrified.”
After Hoggard climbed off her, she said she went to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. She said she then got into the shower to wash herself, feeling “very sore, very sick.”
Afterwards, the complainant said she was worried about what Hoggard was “capable of” and “didn’t want to trigger him.” When she saw that he was watching a TV show on his tablet, she lay back down on the bed to “wait for a time to escape.”
After a period of time, she said Hoggard told her that “I don’t have to worry about STDs or AIDS because he picks them young.” He also told her that his girlfriend wouldn’t find out about it, she said.
The complainant said she returned to the bathroom to throw up again. She said she heard what sounded like Hoggard packing his things. He came to her, she said, and told her he was going to leave, instructing her to stay for half an hour or longer and to leave through the room’s patio door.
“His personality came back,” she said, later describing him as talking “as if nothing happened.”
She said she was “very afraid” to stay for long, wondering if he was “buying time to come back and do something horrible,” and only waited for a minute or so before leaving the hotel.
She made a two-kilometre journey home on foot, she said, and once home she surveyed her body and saw red marks on her thighs, a red handprint on her bottom and bruising on her neck, which she covered with makeup.
During what the complainant described as the “long walk” home, she said she thought to herself: “I don’t know how powerful this man is, I don’t know if the justice system is going to help me.”
The defence was expected to begin cross-examination on Wednesday afternoon.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.