Jennifer Dunn’s already difficult job got a little bit harder this week, she said.

Ms. Dunn is the executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre, an organization that provides counselling and support for women and girls in the region who have been abused, trafficked or sexually assaulted.

All five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team who were accused of sexually assaulting a woman after a 2018 Hockey Canada gala were acquitted in a London, Ont., courtroom Thursday.

Justice Maria Carroccia declared Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote not guilty of sexual assault. Mr. McLeod, who had faced a second charge of being a party to sexual assault, was acquitted on that count as well.

It was Jan. 11, 2024, and police in London, Ont., were preparing to lay sexual-assault charges against five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team.

The men – all of whom were now playing professional hockey, four of them in the NHL – were accused of attacking a woman in a hotel room in June, 2018, after a Hockey Canada gala.