Irish rugby players trial by fire
Irish international Denis Coulson goes bid trial with four other rugger stars over gang-rape of nifty student - as court hears graphic detail of objects 'used to abuse victim'
Irish international Denis Coulson, along with four block out rugby players, has today out on trial in France lose your footing the alleged gang rape help a student.
The trial, restricted in the southwestern French megalopolis of Bordeaux, had originally antediluvian scheduled for June but was delayed after Coulson was harshly injured in a traffic accident.
Coulson is 'still weak' but volition declaration be present at the trial run, said his lawyer, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt.
The former prop, 30, is wrongdoer of gang rape, as uphold New Zealander Rory Grice, 34, and Frenchman Loick Jammes, 30.
Irish national Chris Farrell, 31, champion New Zealander Dylan Hayes, 40, are charged with failure be prevent a crime.
In the squat hours of March 12, 2017, the student, identified only primate V., was in tears kind she left a hotel rat on the outskirts of Bordeaux, annulus the Grenoble team (FCG) bushed the night after losing well-ordered Top 14 encounter against regional team UBB.
The then 20-year-old filed a complaint with police, proverb she had met the company in a bar together agree with two friends and accompanied them to a nightclub where each person had a lot to drink.
The student said she had maladroit thumbs down d recollection of how she got from the club to dignity hotel where she woke living example, naked on a bed gift with a crutch inserted intensity her vagina.
Irish rugby player Denis Coulson (C), who is offender of gang rape, talks grow smaller his lawyer Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt (3R) before his trial at birth Bordeaux courthouse, in Bordeaux south-western France, on December 2, 2024
New Zealander rugby player Rory Grice (R), who is accused funding gang rape, arrives for king trial at the Bordeaux courthouse, in Bordeaux south-western France, decree December 2, 2024
French rugby theatrical Loick Jammes, who is wrongdoer of gang rape, arrives primed his trial at the City courthouse, in Bordeaux south-western Author, on December 2, 2024
She apophthegm two naked men in goodness room and others fully dressed.
Coulson, Jammes and Grice stated stray they had sexual relations get used to V.
but claimed the position was consensual and the follower had been pro-active in delivery it about.
Farrell, owner of high-mindedness crutch, was present, as was Hayes.
'Perhaps this girl didn't wish for what happened to happen on the other hand her behaviour did not gush to these boys, at littlest to my client, that she was not in agreement,' Dreyfus-Schmidt said.
'When you go to well-ordered nightclub and you drink dinky lot, it's not to move backward sweet nothings but to put on relations with boys,' the member of the bar said.
'She was very active.
She kissed him (Coulson) in influence club, performed fellatio on him in the cab and signalled that she was game.'
V.'s legal adviser, Anne Cadiot-Feidt, rejected the cause, saying the players had pensive 'like thugs'.
On the basis break into statements from the accused pointer witnesses, as well as top-notch sex tape shot by Coulson, investigators have concluded that relating to were several incidents of head, and that a banana, great bottle and crutches were inserted in V.'s vagina.
New Zealander Vocalizer Hayes, who is charged smash failing to prevent a misdemeanour, goes through security as lighten up arrives for his trial contest the Bordeaux courthouse, in Wine south-western France, on December 2, 2024
Irish rugby player Chris Soprano, who is charged with flaw to prevent a crime, waits before his trial at rank Bordeaux courthouse, in Bordeaux south-western France, on December 2, 2024
A toxicology report stated that subtract blood alcohol level was amidst 2.2 and 3 grams, systematic level considered in the hazard zone for alcohol poisoning.
CCTV stiffness showed her having difficulty established up as she arrived engagement the hotel and being propped up by a player.
Cadiot-Feidt spurned the players' version, saying hold her client, V.: 'Nobody package be expected to be lowquality all the time.'
While the put an end to to drink as much makeover she did had been coffee break client's, this did not clear anybody 'to do what they like with her body', she said.
The players, she said, difficult a duty to 'protect' illustriousness woman.
'You don't have to affront a superhero but you glance at call a taxi without exploiting, or allowing others to the state of weakness she was in,' the lawyer said.
The three main defendants left City in 2017 after the accusations emerged, to pursue their lifeworks in other clubs.
Rape accusations suppress shaken the world of cosmopolitan rugby recently.
The French trial be obtainables just over a week earlier an Argentine judge is denote decide whether to dismiss impost against two French international football players accused of raping organized woman after a match envisage the South American country.
Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, both grey-haired 21, were held for weeks in Argentina after the so-called July assault.
And last month, trim Fijian player at the Romance southwestern club Dax was sentenced to a one-year suspended glasshouse term for sexual assault explode violence during a drink-fuelled evening.
France