Two Irishmen are among five rugby players due to appear in a French court today in connection with the gang rape of a student.
Denis Coulson, a 30-year-old Dubliner, is said to have taken part in the sex attack on the then-21-year-old student along with Frenchman Loick Jammes, 29, and New Zealander Rory Grice, 34.
Chris Farrell, 31 – a Six Nations Championship winner with Ireland in 2018 – and Dylan Hayes, 30, from New Zealand, are accused of ‘failing to prevent the crime’.
The men will appear at the Bordeaux Assizes on Monday afternoon for a trial listed for 10 days.
All five were teammates playing for FC Grenoble Rugby, in eastern France, when the gang rape is said to have happened in a hotel in Merignac, a suburb of Bordeaux where the city airport is situated, on March 12, 2017.
The accused deny any wrongdoing, and claim that the woman involved – who cannot be named for legal reasons – consented to sex with three of them while all were extremely drunk.
Denis Coulson, a 30-year-old Dubliner, is said to have taken part in the sex attack on the then-21-year-old student
New Zealander Rory Grice is accused of rape
Frenchman Loick Jammes is also accused of raping the student
The trial in southwestern city Bordeaux, scene of the suspected rape, will turn on whether the young woman, now 27, was too drunk to consent to sex.
The now 27-year-old plaintiff, named only as V., has opted for anonymity to protect her personal and professional lives, her lawyers say.
The alleged victim is said to have met the players in a pub after their team played a match against Union Bordeaux-Bègles, before accompanying the five men to a disco where all were seen drinking heavily, according to evidence previously rehearsed in court.
The woman then went with the Grenoble players to their hotel at around 4am, where the party was caught on CCTV looking very drunk, and barely able to stand up.
Coulson is said to have recorded a video on his mobile phone showing the woman performing sex acts, it is alleged by French prosecutors.
Surveillance footage from her arrival at the hotel shows her struggling to stand as Coulson supports her.
He also appears to twice prevent her from re-boarding the taxi.
The victim later told another taxi driver: ‘I was raped. There were several of them’, before filling a complaint to Bordeaux police a few hours later.
V. told magistrates that various objects, including a banana, bottle, and a crutch, were inserted in her vagina by the men.
V. claimed she woke up naked on a bed with a crutch in her vagina at around 7:00am alongside two naked men and others still wearing clothes.
The victim’s lawyer, Anne Cadiot-Feidt, said arguments in the trial would likely focus on ‘the question of the victim’s responsibility in a situation where she voluntarily put herself in a state reducing or eliminating consent’.
‘We often ask questions about the victim’s consent and not at all about how attackers judge their consent,’ she added.
‘What is consent? At what point is it diminished or even totally absent?’.
Meanwhile, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, lawyer for Denis Coulson, said before going into court: ‘This is not the trial of rugby players who are rapists, it is the trial of alcohol.
‘All these young people who drink until they are in impossible states – that is the problem in this case.’
Chris Farrell, 31 – a Six Nations Championship winner with Ireland in 2018 – is accused of ‘failing to prevent the crime’
Dylan Hayes is said to have done nothing to prevent the attack
V. said she remembered nothing about how the night ended after leaving the nightclub.
A toxicologist’s report found that V. had between 2.2 and 3.0 grams of alcohol per litre of blood at that point – well over 10 times the maximum allowed when driving in France.
Testimony from the defendants and witnesses, as well as a video Coulson filmed during a sex act, suggest the group engaged in oral sex with V. as well as penetrating her with objects including crutches.
Coulson, Jammes and Grice have all acknowledged engaging in sex acts with V., but insist they were consensual.
Cadiot-Feidt charged that there is a ‘high level of tolerance’ to alcohol-fuelled incidents among some French rugby clubs and supporters.
‘A lot of people still think that the woman should just not have gone out, just shouldn’t have had anything to drink, just shouldn’t have put herself in that situation,’ she said.
All five players continued their professional careers after being arrested and then released on bail, but two of them – Coulson and Hayes – have since retired.
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