The trial of five ex-rugby players from Grenoble accused of having raped a young woman or of having witnessed the attack without intervening, after an alcoholic “third half” in Bordeaux in 2017, opened Monday after- noon in front of the Gironde Assize Court.
The trial, scheduled until December 13, was initially scheduled to be held in June, behind closed doors, but was postponed in the absence of a defendant, Irishman Denis Coulson, injured in a serious car accident a few days later. early.
The former pillar, aged 30, arrived in court on Monday walking with the help of a crutch. He is being prosecuted for gang rape with the New Zealander Rory Grice, 34, and the Frenchman Loïck Jammes, 30, also present on Monday, as were the Irishman Chris Farrell (31) and the New Zealander Dylan Hayes ( 40 years) who answer for non-prevention of crime.
One of the victim's lawyers, Me Gaessy Gros, specified that he was going to file “a request for a closed session as soon as the debates open, a closed session which will be total for the serenity of the debates in particular”.
On March 12, 2017, V., 20, left in tears a hotel in Mérignac, on the outskirts of Bordeaux, where the Grenoble team had spent the night after a Top 14 match lost against UBB, the local club.
The student filed a complaint, declaring that she had met FCG players in a bar and followed them to a nightclub, where everyone had drunk a lot.
She didn't remember anything between the disco and the hotel where she had come to her senses, naked on a bed with a crutch in her vagina, surrounded by two naked men and others dressed.
Coulson, Jammes and Grice admitted to sexual relations by claiming that V. was consenting. Farrell, who owned the crutches, was in the room and Hayes also witnessed the incident.
“When we go to a nightclub and drink a lot, it's not to make small talk. We want to have relationships with boys. She was very active, she kissed him in a nightclub , gives him oral sex in the taxi, she sends him signs saying: +I'm up for it+”, considers Coulson's lawyer, Me Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt.
According to a toxicological expert, the victim had between 2.2 and 3 grams of alcohol per liter of blood. On video surveillance images, she can barely stand up when she arrives at the hotel.
“No one is required to be perfect from getting up to going to bed. It is not because (alcoholism) is their own doing that allows (others) to do anything and everything with their body” , argues her lawyer, Me Anne Cadiot-Feidt, for whom the accused should have “protected” her rather than “taking advantage” or “allowing them to take advantage” of her “weak situation”.
Several cases have recently tarnished the image of French rugby, including the indictment for aggravated rape, in Argentina, of internationals Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou. The decision on a possible dismissal of the case is currently under deliberation.
