‘Consent videos’ a focus of ex-world junior hockey players’ trial — but does such evidence stand up in court?

Lisa Kerr, an associate law professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., agrees that context is everything.

“For example, you might see on a video that the complainant is intoxicated and you might want to assess what you see on the video with the evidence at trial about their level of intoxication, right? Does it confirm it? Does it undercut it?” Kerr said.

“You might assess the demeanour of the complainant in the video. So, does the complainant appear to be calm? Are they confident? Are they comfortable? Or do they appear to sort of be distressed and ill at ease?”

Depending on what is recorded and how it’s interpreted, a consent video could benefit the prosecution or the defence.

“The video is not going to be determinative of whether there was consent at the time for the specific acts,” Kerr said. “The video may be helpful for assessing the credibility of witnesses, for sort of getting a sense of what was really going on here.”

Videos or app responses can give the illusion of navigating the ambiguities of consent, but if they are only recorded after a sexual encounter, Kerr said, they may be seen as an attempt to make up for a lack of consent at the time of the sexual activity. Link to full story here.