Two Irishmen are amongst 5 rugby gamers attributable to seem in a French court docket in the present day in reference to the gang rape of a pupil.
Denis Coulson, a 30-year-old Dubliner, is claimed to have taken half within the intercourse assault on the then-21-year-old pupil together with Frenchman Loick Jammes, 29, and New Zealander Rory Grice, 34.
Chris Farrell, 31 – a Six Nations Championship winner with Eire in 2018 – and Dylan Hayes, 30, from New Zealand, are accused of ‘failing to forestall the crime’.
The lads will seem on the Bordeaux Assizes on Monday afternoon for a trial listed for 10 days.
All 5 had been teammates enjoying for FC Grenoble Rugby, in jap France, when the gang rape is claimed to have occurred in a lodge in Merignac, a suburb of Bordeaux the place town airport is located, on March 12, 2017.
The accused deny any wrongdoing, and declare that the lady concerned – who can’t be named for authorized causes – consented to intercourse with three of them whereas all had been extraordinarily drunk.
Denis Coulson, a 30-year-old Dubliner, is claimed to have taken half within the intercourse assault on the then-21-year-old pupil
New Zealander Rory Grice is accused of rape
Frenchman Loick Jammes can also be accused of raping the coed
The trial in southwestern metropolis Bordeaux, scene of the suspected rape, will activate whether or not the younger girl, now 27, was too drunk to consent to intercourse.
The now 27-year-old plaintiff, named solely as V., has opted for anonymity to guard her private {and professional} lives, her legal professionals say.
The alleged sufferer is claimed to have met the gamers in a pub after their staff performed a match in opposition to Union Bordeaux-Bègles, earlier than accompanying the 5 males to a disco the place all had been seen consuming closely, in keeping with proof beforehand rehearsed in court docket.
The lady then went with the Grenoble gamers to their lodge at round 4am, the place the get together was caught on CCTV trying very drunk, and barely in a position to arise.
Coulson is claimed to have recorded a video on his cell phone displaying the lady performing intercourse acts, it’s alleged by French prosecutors.
Surveillance footage from her arrival on the lodge reveals her struggling to face as Coulson helps her.
He additionally seems to twice stop her from re-boarding the taxi.
The sufferer later advised one other taxi driver: ‘I used to be raped. There have been a number of of them’, earlier than filling a grievance to Bordeaux police a couple of hours later.
V. advised magistrates that numerous objects, together with a banana, bottle, and a crutch, had been inserted in her vagina by the lads.
V. claimed she wakened bare on a mattress with a crutch in her vagina at round 7:00am alongside two bare males and others nonetheless sporting garments.
The sufferer’s lawyer, Anne Cadiot-Feidt, stated arguments within the trial would doubtless concentrate on ‘the query of the sufferer’s accountability in a scenario the place she voluntarily put herself in a state decreasing or eliminating consent’.
‘We frequently ask questions concerning the sufferer’s consent and by no means about how attackers decide their consent,’ she added.
‘What’s consent? At what level is it diminished and even completely absent?’.
In the meantime, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, lawyer for Denis Coulson, stated earlier than going into court docket: ‘This isn’t the trial of rugby gamers who’re rapists, it’s the trial of alcohol.
‘All these younger individuals who drink till they’re in unimaginable states – that’s the drawback on this case.’
Chris Farrell, 31 – a Six Nations Championship winner with Eire in 2018 – is accused of ‘failing to forestall the crime’
Dylan Hayes is claimed to have completed nothing to forestall the assault
V. stated she remembered nothing about how the evening ended after leaving the nightclub.
A toxicologist’s report discovered that V. had between 2.2 and three.0 grams of alcohol per litre of blood at that time – properly over 10 occasions the utmost allowed when driving in France.
Testimony from the defendants and witnesses, in addition to a video Coulson filmed throughout a intercourse act, recommend the group engaged in oral intercourse with V. in addition to penetrating her with objects together with crutches.
Coulson, Jammes and Grice have all acknowledged partaking in intercourse acts with V., however insist they had been consensual.
Cadiot-Feidt charged that there’s a ‘excessive stage of tolerance’ to alcohol-fuelled incidents amongst some French rugby golf equipment and supporters.
‘Lots of people nonetheless suppose that the lady ought to simply not have gone out, simply should not have had something to drink, simply should not have put herself in that scenario,’ she stated.
All 5 gamers continued their skilled careers after being arrested after which launched on bail, however two of them – Coulson and Hayes – have since retired.
