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Abstract

Through an analysis of 91 publicly reported legal cases of technology-facilitated sexual violence against women and children in Canadian sport, this paper examines the role that digital technologies play in sexual violence in sport and the criminal legal response to it. Drawing on feminist perspectives on law, sport, and gender-based violence and Science and Technology Studies, the paper explores how digital technologies can facilitate violence within sporting cultures commonly characterized by misogyny and toxic masculinities, and have varying impacts in a criminal legal system where digital evidence may be viewed as more credible than the victims reporting harm. Through this analysis, this paper reveals the intersections of technology, sexual violence, sport, and the law.

Keywords

technology-facilitated sexual violence violence against women and children Canadian sport Canadian criminal legal system

Sexual violence in Canadian sport has recently captured the attention of Canadian news media. Media reports have been publicizing what existing research has long demonstrated: sexual violence is not only common in Canadian sport, but is also normalized, silenced, and commonly tolerated by sport organizations and celebrated within sporting cultures where misogyny and toxic masculinities prevail (DeKeseredy et al., 2023a, 2023b: Fogel, 2017; Fogel & Quinlan, 2023). Media reports and academic research alike have focused predominantly on physical forms of sexual assault in sport. Missing from these dialogues, however, has been discussions of the growing phenomenon of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV), which involves “a range of behaviors where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms” (Henry & Powell, 2016, p.195).

Outside the context of sport, academic scholarship on gender-based violence is shining a light on the increasing prevelance of TFSV(Dodge, 2021; Henry & Powell, 2018; Henry, Flynn, & Powell, 2020; Powell & Henry, 2017, 2019;Sorochinski & Borukhov, 2024). Available Canadian statistics suggest that 11% of women have experienced unwanted sexual behaviours online (Cotter & Savage, 2019). Women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals experience higher rates of TFSV, while perpetrators target more people of colour, Indigenous people, 2SLGBTIQIA + individuals, and other historically marginalized groups (Bailey et al., 2021; Bailey & Mathen, 2019; Dunn, 2020; Henry et al., 2020;Flynn et al., 2021; Powell & Flynn, 2023; Powell, Scott, & Henry, 2020).

Despite the ongoing dialogues about sexual assault in sport and the growing evidence of TFSV in other contexts, academics and journalists have given limited attention to the problem of TFSV in Canadian sport. Outside of Canada, some scholars have analyzed American rape cases in sport involving digital evidence, such as the Steubenville rape case (e.g., Dodge, 2016; 2019; Henry & Powell, 2014; Fairbairn & Spencer, 2017),but TFSV in Canadian sport, as well as the cultures that maintain and support TFSV within it, have remained underexamined. Taking up this challenge, this article employs unobtrusive methods to investigate the common forms and criminal legal responses to TFSV in sport in Canada through an analysis of 91 criminal cases of TFSV in Canadian sport. Drawing on theoretical insights from feminist perspectives on law, sport, and gender-based violence and Science and Technology Studies, we explore the roles that digital technologies play in cases of sexual violence in Canadian sport to reveal the complex intersections of technology, sexual violence, sport, and the law.

Context

Existing research has documented the systemic and enduring problem of sexual assault in sport in Canada (DeKeseredy et al., 2023a, 2023b; Fogel & Quinlan, 2021, 2023, 2024; Kirby, 1995). Much of this literature, however, has focused on in-person, physical forms of sexual violence by and against athletes.

Research on sexual violence perpetrated by athletes has consistently shown the disproportionately high rates of sexual assault perpetrated by male athletes. In the 1990s, Crosset et al.'s (1995) pioneering study of sexual assaults perpetrated by male university athletes against women revealed that although athletes made up only 3% of university student populations, male athletes were reported for nearly 20% of sexual assaults on the university campuses. Building on this work, Murnen and Kohlman's (2007) meta-analysis identified a significant correlation between men's sport participation and sexual aggressivity and Young et al. (2016) surveyed 379 male college students in and found that athletes were 77% more likely to engage in sexually coercive behaviours than non-athletes.

Beyond these studies of prevalence, other research has pointed to the cultural belief systems and practices in competitive men's sports that normalize and celebrate violence against women. Through their analysis of 307 cases of reported sexual assault in Canadian sport, Fogel and Quinlan (2023) illustrate the enduring institutional tolerance, normalization, and celebration of sexual assault within competitive, hyper-masculine sporting cultures, and the forms of institutional betrayal by sport organizations and the criminal legal system that often result for victims. DeKeseredy et al. (2023a, 2023b) examine the role of toxic masculinities and rape culture in the promotion of sexual assault in Canadian hockey. Taken together, the evidence on sexual assault by athletes highlights not only the high prevalence of sexual violence perpetrated by male athletes, but also the systemic cultures and social structures in many competitive men's sports that normalize, tolerate, and celebrate gender-based violence.

Existing research has also examined sexual violence perpetrated against athletes by other athletes in hazing rituals (Fogel & Quinlan, 2021, 2023; Kirby & Wintrup, 2004) and by coaches and other authority figures in sport, particularly against young athletes (Fogel & Quinlan, 2023; Parent et al., 2016). In 2019, the Canadian Broadcasting Company published a groundbreaking series on sexual exploitation in Canadian sport highlighting that over 200 coaches in Canada have been charged with sexual offences against children in the last 20 years (Ward & Strashin, 2019). The continued wave of media coverage on the topic (e.g., Mann, 2023) has heightened public scrutiny on sexual exploitation of young athletes in Canada, and the inadequacy of sports organizations’ and government officials’ responses to the problem. Similar issues have been identified in other countries. A survey of 4043 athletes in the Netherlands found that 14% indicated they had been sexually victimized (Vertommen et al., 2016). In a retrospective British survey of 6,124 young adults responding to questions on their experiences in sport as children, 171 (3%) indicated they had been sexually abused (Alexander et al., 2011). Brackenridge et al. (2008) examined 159 cases of sexual violence in British sport and identified that 98% were perpetrated by coaches.

While this literature clearly illustrates high rates of sexual violence by and against athletes in sport, it has given little attention to violence in digital spaces in sport. The growing evidence of the increasing prevalence and harms of TFSV outside of sport suggests that a study on TFSV in sport is long overdue.

Defining Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence

Technology-facilitated sexual violence includes forms of sexual violence that are enabled and facilitated by digital technologies and can involve the use of digital technologies to facilitate violence in the physical world (e.g., physical forms of sexual assault) or violence in the digital world (e.g., distribution of child pornography), or some combination thereof (e.g., the production and distribution of child pornography). The 91 legal cases from Canadian sport that we examined involved the use of digital technologies in the perpetration of one or more criminal acts of child luring, child pornography, sexual exploitation, sextortion, non-consensual intimate-image distribution (NCIID), voyeurism, indecent exposure, and sexual assault.

Like physical forms of sexual violence, sexual violence in the digital realm can have serious and ongoing negative impacts on the health and well-being of survivors, including increased anxiety, lower self-esteem, depression, and self-harm (Bates, 2017; Champion et al., 2021; Eaton & McGlynn, 2020; Henry et al., 2020; Patel & Roesch, 2020; Quinlan, 2017a). Unlike physical forms of sexual violence, TFSV does not require physical proximity and the traces of violence are more easily distributed, which can multiply instances of violence beyond a singular act and exacerbate harm. As Dodge (2016) explains, “the photograph reiterates the event, extends the event, and is an act of sexual violence in and of itself as it humiliates, violates, and invites more and more viewers to join in on the violation” (p. 70). Additionally, perpetrators of TFSV have greater potential to remain anonymous and thus avoid prosecution or any form of accountability, while victims are often more visible and identifiable, which heightens risks of public shaming (Dodge, 2016).

Conceptualizing Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence

Given the known gendered trends in the perpetration and victimization of sexual violence, many scholars have called for a gendered lens in analyses of TFSV (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2016; Henry, Flynn, & Powell, 2020; Henry & Powell, 2015). Pointing to the high rates of women who experience image-based sexual assault and men who perpetrate it, DeKeseredy and Schwartz (2016) argue that “gender-blind theories” (p. 1) fail to capture the gendered nature of online harm. TFSV is also impacted by intersecting relations of power and is fueled by sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, colonialism, ageism and other systems of oppression (Bailey & Burkell, 2023; Henry et al., 2020), with youth, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals facing high risks of TFSV (Dunn, 2020; Flynn et al., 2021; Powell & Henry, 2019; Gámez-Guadix & Incera, 2021; Gámez-Guadix et al., 2022). This work has importantly called for analyses that are sensitive to the intersecting systems of power that shape the risks and resulting harms of TFSV.

To examine TFSV in Canadian sport, we combine insights from feminist scholarship on law, sport, and gender-based violence, with Science and Technology Studies (STS), specifically actor-network theory (ANT), which highlights the complex relations between human and non-human actors (Callon, 1999; Latour, 2005; Law, 2004). While interpretations and applications of ANT abound (Michael, 2017), many ANT scholars share a view of technologies as actors that can shape and are shaped by their relations with other human and non-human actors (Latour, 2005; Law, 2004). Crucial to this view is the insight that non-humans play a “active role” (Callon & Law, 1997, p. 168) in the assemblage of heterogeneous material realities. Describing this further, Callon and Law (1997) argue:
Often in practice we bracket off non-human materials, assuming they have a status, which differs from that of a human. So materials become resources or constraints; they are said to be passive…But if the social is really materially heterogeneous then this asymmetry doesn’t work very well. Yes, there are differences between conversations, texts, techniques, and bodies. Of course. But why should we start out by assuming that some of these have no active role to play in social dynamics? (p. 168)
ANT has been used to study a wide variety of sociotechnical and sociolegal objects and practices, such as laboratory science (Latour & Woolgar, 1986), legal decision making (Latour, 2009), and bodies and disease (Mol, 2002). In this study, we draw on insights from ANT to conceptualize digital technologies as actors that are involved in both the perpetuation and prosecution of sexual violence in Canadian sport. We examine these technologies as playing a role in the misogyny, toxic masculinities and rape cultures that perpetuate gender-based violence in sport, and the institutional responses to it in the criminal legal system.

In drawing on insights from ANT, we pick up on Henry et al. (2020)'s suggestion that ANT can provide a useful frame for conceptualizing technologies involved in TFSV. Echoing Callon and Law (1997), Henry et al. (2020) argue that ANT “draws attention to the active role of nonhuman components in an assemblage of abusive tactics, which can be understood as more than mere tools in the hands of a human perpetrator” (p. 1833). Departing from their work, in this study, we consider not only the role of technology in the perpetration of sexual harm in Canadian sport, but also in the prosecution of that harm in the Canadian criminal legal system through evidence of digital records from social media, text messaging, group chats, private messaging, video chat platforms, and AI-generated images.

By examining the “active role” (Callon & Law, 1997, p. 168) of digital technologies in cases of sexual violence in sport, we are not intending to overshadow or oversimplify the obvious differences between non-humans and human action and responsibility for digital sexual violence. Human agency, in the context of gendered, racialized, classed power relations, fuels the decisions to perpetrate and prosecute sexual violence. But technologies also play a role in the relations that fuel violence and criminal legal responses to it. With this framing, our analysis reveals how humans and digital technologies work alongside one another in the cases of TFSV in Canadian sport.

Methodology

In this study, we employ Webb et al.'s (2000) unobtrusive method of data collection to examine 91 publicly reported legal cases of TFSV in Canadian sport. The cases analyzed in this study occurred between 2000–2025 and involved one or more criminal acts facilitated or enabled by digital technologies. Legal cases were located through the Canadian Legal Information Institute's database, which houses court reports of judges’ decisions on significant legal cases in Canada, and Canadian Newsstream, which provides full text for over 400 Canadian news sources. To find cases, we used search terms such as, child luring, child pornography, sexual exploitation, extortion, NCIID, voyeurism, indecent exposure, and sexual assault alongside the terms sport, athlete or coach. Included in the analysis were the cases for which sufficient information could be found on the people and digital technologies involved, the sport and playing level the violence occurred within, and the resulting disciplinary or legal sanctions. To supplement the available information on each case, additional articles and documents were located through internet searches. Cases where only limited information could be found on the circumstances of the TFSV and people involved were excluded from the sample.

To analyze the data, following Timmermans and Tavory's (2012) suggestions for qualitative analysis, we paid particular attention to discrepancies, inconsistencies, and “surprising research evidence” (p. 170), which we used to refine thematic codes and enrich our analysis. Drawing on theoretical insights from feminist perspectives on law and sport, and Actor-Network Theory, our analysis paid particular attention to how technologies act to perpetuate harm and as forms of evidence in legal cases of TFSV.

This methodological design did not capture all the cases of TFSV that occurred in Canadian sport between 2000–2025, as no design could. Our data include only those cases that were reported in Canada's most-read newspapers, and/or that were reported to police, went to trial, and had a legal decision report written. By relying on an unobtrusive method of collecting and analyzing media and legal case files, the cases we analyzed are not representative of the totality of cases, occurrences, and experiences of TFSV in Canadian sport. They do, however, provide a window into largely unseen trends in TFSV in Canadian sport and the complex, and active role that digital technologies play in this violence and the criminal legal response.

Digital Technologies and the Perpetration of Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

A variety of digital technologies have been used in the perpetration of sexual violence in Canadian sport. In the cases we analyzed, digital forms of communication and imagery, involving text messaging, video chats, and social media, played significant roles in the luring and grooming of women and children for physical forms of sexual violence, as well as in enabling sexual violence in the digital spaces. The cases we analyzed reflect the well-documented gendered nature of TFSV (Flynn et al., 2022a, 2002b; Powell & Flynn, 2023), as all the cases we examined involved men as perpetrators and victims who were identified as women and/or youth (male and female) under the age of 18. Our analysis reveals the roles that digital technologies can play in facilitating and enabling sexual harms that emerge and are supported by existing misogyny, toxic masculinities, and rape cultures in Canadian sport. In what follows, we describe several exemplary cases that illustrate these broader trends.

In 2016, Mathew Dean Vigon pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a young woman who played on a basketball team he coached, making child pornography of her, and luring her for the purposes of sexual exploitation (R. v. Vigon, 2016). As the legal case reveals, in the young woman's grade 10 year, Vigon, who was 19 years her senior, began sending sexualized email and text messages after accessing her contact information through basketball team records. The sexualized messages were a precursor to physical sexual contact, which began shortly after she turned 16. Vigon took pictures and videos of the young woman during sexual acts, which were discovered by Vigon's wife. The judge presiding over the case highlighted the role that the technology played in the acts and resulting harms of Vigon's sexual violence:
Misuses of the Internet allow predators such as Vigon virtual access into the homes and minds of vulnerable adolescents in a manner which precludes intervention and protection by parents or others. He used email and text messaging as a private means of communication with the goal of isolating and manipulating the complainant. This harmed her over and above the harm caused by the resulting sexual contact. (para. 23)
The judge's words placed distinct emphasis on the role of digital technologies in providing “virtual access into the homes and minds” (para. 23) of the victim and perpetuating harms that went “over and above” (para. 23) the harms of physical sexual violence. Vignon was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment.

In a similar case, Joseph Potvin, a 53-year-old volleyball coach in Nova Scotia cultivated a relationship with a 17-year-old female player on his volleyball team over text messaging and video chats (Rhodes, 2014). The online communication between the coach and athlete involved sexualized comments and coerced sharing of nude images. Through these digital forms of communication, Potvin cultivated a coercive relationship that resulted in physical sexual assault. The athlete's father became suspicious of the relationship and after accessing her text and online messages with her coach, he handed the material over to the police. Potvin pleaded guilty to charges of sexual exploitation, sexual assault, child luring, and the production of child pornography and was sentenced to four years in prison (Rhodes, 2014). Revealing the systemic lack of organizational accountability and oversight in the Canadian sport system, at the sentencing hearing, information was disclosed that Potvin had been previously convicted of sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and invitation to sexually touching involving a 12-year-old girl (“Volleyball coach facing,” 2011). The school where he coached later admitted to not doing any background screening before hiring him (“School board admits,” 2011).

The case of former national swim team coach, Matt Bell, who later became head coach and CEO of Ajax swimming, provides another clear illustration of a coach using digital messaging to groom young athletes for sexual violence in the physical world. Bell, who was 30 at the time, began a relationship with a 16-year-old female-identified athlete that involved the exchange of “thousands of sexually charged texts” over a two-year period (Bowmile, 2016, para. 2). The sexually explicit texting intensified and led to multiple occasions where Bell invited the young athlete to his condo and they engaged in physical sexual acts, which the athlete could not legally consent to under Canada's sexual exploitation laws. The athlete reported the violence to police and Bell was charged with sexual exploitation, sexual assault, and child luring. He was sentenced to seven months in prison.

These three cases depict a common trend in the cases we examined, in which a male-identified coach utilized digital technologies as a tool for grooming, luring, and sexually exploiting a young female athlete. Describing the role of grooming in sexual abuse in sport not facilitated by technology, Brackenridge and Fasting (2005) write,
Grooming is central to the abusive relationship…It involves slowly gaining the trust of the potential victim before systematically breaking down interpersonal barriers prior to committing actual sexual abuse. This process may take weeks, months or years with the perpetrator usually moving steadily so that he is able to maintain secrecy and avoid exposure. Grooming is important because it brings about the appearance of co-operation from the athlete, making the act of abuse seem to be consensual. (p. 35)
Similarly, Craven et al. (2006) describe grooming in sport as a “process by which a person prepares a child, significant adults and the environment for the abuse of this child” (p. 297). With the development and increased use of digital technologies, the process of grooming increasingly involves digital communications over text messaging, social media, and other virtual chat platforms.

Digital technologies can also be used to inflict sexual violence in ways that do not involve grooming and luring. The case involving Yellowknife Gymnastics Club coach, Ricky Lee Sutherland illustrates this trend. Sutherland began contacting a female 17-year-old gymnast from the club where he coached, via text messaging, Instagram, and Snapchat ( R. v. Sutherland, 2019 ). Reports suggest that the messages increasingly included sexual comments, harassment, and images of Sutherland. The athlete saved the messages and photos using a screen-capture function on her phone, blocked him on social media, and reported the online harassment. Sutherland was sentenced to 1-year in prison for the offence of child luring. In reporting her sentencing decision, the presiding judge identified a need to “close the cyberspace door before the predator gets in to prey” (para. 10). Similar to the Vigon case, where the judge emphasized the active role that digital technologies play in facilitating sexual harm, here, the judge's words framed digital technologies as inherently risky tools that can grant perpetrators access to victims.

The trial of Mississauga gymnastics coach, Scott McFarlane, is another example of a coach accused of using digital technologies for reported sexualized communications with an athlete. In the case, a fifteen-year-old female gymnast filed a complaint with her gymnastics club alleging sexually explicit online communications, including the coach sending digital images of his genitals over private messaging on social media, which the club reportedly ignored (Aguilar, 2018). Five years earlier, McFarlane had been fired from a previous coaching position in Ottawa when a twelve-year-old athlete reported him for sending inappropriate text and social media messages, including sexually explicit pictures of himself. He was never criminally charged in that case. After McFarlane was hired by the Mississauga gymnastics club, the Ottawa club reportedly notified the Mississauga club about his firing and expressed concerns about his continued social media contact with young athletes at the Ottawa club. Reports suggest that the Mississauga club did nothing with this information. When the club did not act, the Mississauga gymnast reported the abuse to police and McFarlane was charged with multiple sexual offences including indecent exposure (Long, 2018). In November 2022, McFarlane was acquitted of all charges (Long, 2022).

The majority of cases we analyzed involved victims identified as girls or women; however, some cases involved male athletes under 18 years old. One example is the case of Etobicoke basketball coach, Jordan Cristoferi-Paulucci. During the 2012 and 2013 seasons, Cristoferi-Paulucci engaged three young male athletes who he was coaching in text messaging and private messaging on social media, where he sent repeated requests for nude pictures of the athletes, videos of ejaculation, and other sexual acts in exchange for gifts and financial compensation (R. v. Cristogeri-Paulucci, 2017). One of the athletes notified police and a trail of digital evidence led to criminal convictions for making, possessing, and accessing child pornography. Cristoferi-Paulucci was sentenced to 20-months in prison. He appealed the decision, arguing that his rights to a timely trial under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated, which nullified the conviction (Pazzano, 2018).

Male coaches were not the only people using digital technologies to lure and harass potential victims in the cases we analyzed. While coaches were the most common accused perpetrators of TFSV, some cases involved male athletes reportedly using digital technologies to lure women into sexual activity via online dating apps, while others utilized digital technologies such as cell phone videos and live-streaming during acts of sexual violence. In one example, in 2016, a male-identified university lacrosse player, Patrick Walsh, recorded images of a young, naked, intoxicated woman and streamed a FaceTime video of her to his friends (Powell, 2018). Reports suggest that Walsh met the young woman, a student at a Toronto university, at a bar and invited her back to his mother's downtown condo. There, the victim testified that he forced her to perform oral sex, sexually assaulted her, and recorded her while she vomited naked. A jury found Walsh guilty of sexual assault and he was sentenced to two years in prison (Pazzano, 2019).

In 2021, two junior hockey players from Quebec- Nicolas Daigle and Massimo Siciliano- sexually assaulted a 17-year-old young woman the night after their team, the Victoriaville Tigres, won their league championship ( R. c. Daigle, 2024 ). The victim was an employee at the hotel in which they were staying. One of the players, Nicolas Daigle, filmed a video of the sexual assault without her knowledge, and after the act, showed the video to teammates and a coach at a team party (Banerjee, 2024). Both players pleaded guilty. Daigle received a 32-month jail sentence and Siciliano was sentenced to 30 months (Watts, 2025).

In many of these cases, digital technologies were part of a complicated, coercive and violent dynamic between the perpetrators and victims, a dynamic that is propelled and shaped by existing forms of misogyny, toxic masculinities and rape culture in sport. While the perpetrators were no doubt at the centre of this violence, the technologies they employed played an “active role” (Callon & Law, 1997, p. 168) in enabling and facilitating forms of sexual violence that are deeply embedded in sporting cultures. In some cases, judges’ comments about technologies seemingly emphasized the role that digital technologies can play in the perpetration of sexual harms and in the case of R. v. Sutherland, framed technology as implicated in harm by framing the “door of cyberspace” (para. 10) as an opening for would-be perpetrators. These comments cast the agency of technology and its role in sexual harm largely in isolation from the broader cultural context in which these technologies participate. In contrast to this view, we argue that the digital technologies in these cases did not cause the violence, nor were they necessarily essential to it – isolating, manipulating, and grooming victims of sexual violence can certainly be accomplished without digital technologies. However, in these cases, digital technologies were nonetheless involved in the sexual harms to varying extents. The technologies were caught up in and part of abusive and violent relations that are shaped by existing gendered and racialized forms of power in and outside of Canadian sport.

When digital technologies become caught up in these relations, they produce traces in the form of digitized words and images. These digital traces of sexual violence can cause ongoing harms for victims and may also be used in criminal legal system to prosecute that sexual harm, often with varying results for victims.

Digital Technologies and the Prosecution of Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

Digital forms of evidence, Dodge et al. (2019) assert, are involved in the majority of cases of sexual assault in Canada. Aligning with trends in non-sporting contexts (Craig, forthcoming; Dodge, 2018), in the cases we analyzed, photographs, videos, text messages, emails, security camera footage, social media posts, and/or recorded live-streams were used to corroborate, and at times, refute a victim's testimony and undermine their credibility in court. These new digital ‘actors’ in the courtroom can thus have various impacts on the outcomes of criminal trials.

Sexual assault in Canada has a relatively low rate of conviction in comparison to other crimes (Cotter, 2024). Feminist legal scholars have long argued that the deeply rooted sexism, racism, and classism embedded in law and legal practice has fueled distrust of women, particularly Indigenous women, poor women, and women of colour reporting sexual assault (Backhouse, 2008; Craig, 2021; Hlavka & Mulla, 2021; Smart, 1989), which has led to high rates of police dismissing sexual assault reports as unfounded and low rates of sexual assault convictions (Johnson, 2012). In sport, these trends are often amplified by the common power differentials between victims and athlete or coach perpetrators, who may carry not only gender, race, and/or class privilege, but also social status from the world of sport (Fogel & Quinlan, 2023). As a result, victims of high-profile athletes and coaches are commonly seen as having a vested interest in lying about sexual assault, a stereotype that magnifies existing distrust of women reporting sexual violence (Robinson, 1998). In criminal trials in and outside of sport, the distrust in victims has resulted in a demand for substantial corroborative evidence of sexual assault, which was once codified in Canadian law and now remains embedded in legal practice (Backhouse, 2008; Quinlan, 2017b). In this context, Dodge (2018) argues that digital evidence is often assumed to be an “ideal and unbiased digital witness” (p. 304) in the courtroom, that unlike the victim, can be trusted to provide reliable accounts of sexual violence. The digital witness, Dodge notes, might be assumed to be shifting this balance in favour of more convictions and increased credibility for victims in court. However, in the cases we analyzed, a more complicated dynamic was at play.

As existing work outside the context of Canadian sport has shown (Dodge, 2018; Ramirez & Denault, 2025), digital evidence can act in different ways in sexual assault trials. Below we discuss two exemplary legal cases from those we analyzed that depict the contrasting roles that digital evidence can play in legal cases of sexual assault in sport. In one case, the digital evidence inspired legal action and played a role in the resulting conviction at trial. In the second, the digital evidence was used by the defence to challenge and undermine the credibility of the complainant's testimony in court, which led to the acquittal of the accused. In both cases, the digital evidence was cast as a credible “digital witness” (Dodge, 2019, p. 304) to the sexual activity – a witness that had the power to corroborate or call into question the complainant's testimony. Crucially, the digital witness did not act alone. To become a witness, the digital evidence had to be “made to speak” (Jasonoff, 2006, p. 330) by lawyers and judges who are situated within a criminal legal system long shaped by the distrust of sexual assault victims (Dodge, 2019). As the cases below illustrate, in a criminal legal context where sexual assault victims are commonly doubted and dismissed, this digital evidence was often treated as a more trustworthy and credible ‘witness’ than the women and young athletes reporting sexual harm.

In 2018, a group of young men who played football and basketball at St. Michael's College School in Toronto became the first athletes in Canada to be convicted for a sexual assault that occurred during a hazing ritual. The trial generated public outcry about hazing in sport and received international attention, making headlines in the New York Times (Porter, 2018) and the BBC ("St Michaels", 2018). Reports suggest that in the locker room after a game, the athletes held the victim down and sexually assaulted him with a broom handle (Casey, 2021). Their actions mirrored those of another group of athletes at McGill University, who in 2005, sexually assaulted a teammate with a broomstick during a hazing ritual (Fogel, 2013). In the case at McGill in 2005, the university cancelled the men's football season for the year and instituted a zero-tolerance policy on hazing, but no police investigation was launched or charges laid (Fogel, 2013). In contrast, in the case at St. Michael's College in 2018, a police investigation was initiated shortly after the assault was reported. This was due in part to a video of the sexual assault that began circulating on social media shortly after the incident (Casey, 2021). Speaking of the video, a teen at the school told police that “it kind of swept across the school in the morning” (as cited in Casey, 2021, para. 14) after the assault and many of the students at the school were talking about it. The video was shown in the courtroom and became a key piece of evidence in the trial. Three of the teens pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon and assault with a weapon, while another pleaded guilty to making child pornography for their role in video recording the sexual assault and distributing the video on social media (Casey, 2021).

A more recent case provides an example of digital evidence playing a contrasting role in the courtroom. In April 2025, five former junior men's hockey players from Canada's national team were placed on trial for sexual assaulting a woman (identified publicly as E.M.) in a hotel room in 2018 in London, Ontario, where the team had gathered for an event to celebrate their World Juniors championship (Hinkson & Robson, 2025). E.M. reported that she had consented to sexual activity with one of the players, but the sexual acts with four other players that took place over the subsequent hours were not consensual. Various forms of digital evidence were introduced during the trial, including security videos from the bar where the players first met the woman, screenshots from a group chat between the players where one invited others to join in the sexual activity, and videos of the complainant taken during the sexual encounter (Boynton, 2025). Video footage of the woman dancing with players at the bar and consuming drinks with alcohol were closely scrutinized by both sides, with the defence arguing that E.M. initiated some contact with the players, purchased some of her own drinks, and did not drink as much as she had reported. In a video recorded by one of the accused players after the alleged assaults occurred, E.M. states that the acts were consensual and that she was sober at the time of the video. While the prosecution argued that these videos do not indicate consent, the defence used the video evidence to point to inconsistencies in the woman's testimony and question the credibility of her report (Westhead, 2025). Under Canadian law, consent must be continuous and ongoing, not provided after-the fact, and can be negated by intoxication. And yet, the defence used the digital evidence to argue the acts were consensual, consistent with the case of R. v. Reimer (2024), where text messages sent before sexual activity were deemed to be admissible evidence related to establishing consent. Given the high-profile status of the accused athletes, the trial generated significant public interest, with some claiming that E.M. was lying to destroy the careers of the athletes and others supporting E.M. and arguing that the case revealed the normalization of sexual violence and systemic victim-blaming in sport and the criminal legal system (Pauls, 2025).

In July 2025, all five players were acquitted and have been permitted to return to playing in the National Hockey League (Whyno, 2025). In her ruling, the judge said that she did “not find the evidence of E.M. to be either credible or reliable” (CBC, 2025). While the judge did not specifically point to the digital evidence as a deciding factor, this trial reveals how digital evidence can be “made to speak” (Jasoanoff, 2006, p. 330) by both Crown and defence to both support and contest victims’ credibility on the stand.

While the “digital witness” (Dodge, 2019, p. 304) in cases of sexual assault in Canadian sport may in some cases lead to convictions, in others, it has potential to be used in ways that undermine victims’ credibility and voice in the courtroom. In a context where sexual assault victims, particularly those accusing well-known athletes of sexual violence, are commonly doubted, dismissed, and in some cases publicly ridiculed, digital technologies are often granted more credibility than the victim reporting harm. Additionally, with more cases involving digital evidence, there may be an increased expectation of corroborative digital evidence in legal cases. While our analysis points to some of these emerging trends, the wide-reaching impacts of this new ‘actor’ on victims, accused, and criminal legal outcomes in sexual assault trials in Canadian sport are in need of ongoing empirical investigation.

Conclusion

Despite the rise in media and scholarly attention on sexual assault in sport, TFSV perpetrated by and against athletes in Canadian sport has received limited attention. While policy makers and sport organizations across Canada are working to develop new policies and practices around sexual assault prevention in sport, there is an urgent need for more dialogue about TFSV in sport. Enhancing sexual assault prevention and response in Canadian sport requires acknowledgement and investigation of all forms of sexual violence that occur in sporting contexts, including digital forms of sexual violence. Building on existing literature of TFSV in other contexts (Bailey & Mathen, 2019; Dodge, 2018, 2019; 2021, 2024; Fairbairn & Spencer, 2017; Henry & Powell, 2014), this study provides a window into the largely unexamined problem of TFSV in Canadian sport and presents an opening for additional scholarly investigation and public discourse on the topic.

As this study has shown, digital technologies are increasingly being used to perpetrate sexual harms in Canadian sport, as well as prosecute those same harms in criminal courtrooms with varying outcomes. Alongside human actors, these technologies are playing an “active role” (Callon & Law, 1997, p. 168) in sexual violence in sport and the criminal legal response to it. Digital technologies that facilitate sexual violence in sport are relatively new participants in sporting cultures that have long been characterized by misogyny, toxic masculinity, and the normalization of sexual violence (see DeKeseredy et al., 2023a, 2023b; Fogel & Quinlan, 2023). When used to perpetuate harm, digital technologies can extend and amplify these broader harms in sport. These same digital technologies are simultaneously serving as “digital witness[es]” (Dodge, 2019, p. 304) in a criminal legal system shaped by institutionalized forms of discrimination and the enduring distrust of victims of sexual assault (Backhouse, 2008; Craig, 2021; Hlavka & Mulla, 2021; Smart, 1989). When used to prosecute harm, digital technologies can contribute to these broader trends in the criminal legal system. Digital technologies do not act alone in these spaces, but alongside many other actors. The dual role that digital technologies are playing in these contexts points to the dynamic relations between technology, sexual violence, sport, and the law.

Digital communication technologies are developing at a rate that far exceeds the development and amendment of criminal law. As digital technologies continue to be developed, new forms of TFSV in sport will undoubtedly emerge. In non-sporting contexts, scholars have been tracking the increasing use of artificial intelligence in sexual assault cases and the creation of deepfakes, which are seemingly realistic but non-consensually created sexual imagery (Dunn, 2024; Flynn et al., 2022a, 2022b), and doxing, which refers to the non-consensual disclosure of personal information online that can lead to various forms of physical and technology-facilitated sexual harms (Sarkar, 2023). It is not known what impacts these developing forms of TFSV will have in Canadian sport, but policy makers and sport organizations should be monitoring these new trends to promote increased safety and accountability for athletes, other sport stakeholders, and their communities.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Andrea Quinlan

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant #430-2025-00248).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Authors Biographies

Andrea Quinlan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on intersections of law, science, technology, and medicine in criminal legal responses to gender-based violence, and the influence of anti-violence movements on sexual assault policy, law, and institutional practice.

Curtis Fogel is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Sport Management at Brock University. His research examines socio-legal issues in sport, with particular interest in violence and human rights.

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Digital Violations: Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

Abstract

Keywords

Context

Defining Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence

Conceptualizing Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence

Methodology

Digital Technologies and the Perpetration of Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

Digital Technologies and the Prosecution of Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

Conclusion

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Authors Biographies

References