Highly anticipated moment for the resumption of the trial of the ex-Grenoble players: the testimony of the alleged victim who, seven years later, has been facing for a week the events of that night of March 11 to 13, 2017. She will undoubtedly be subjected to the fire questions from the defense.
Monday, the trial of ex-Grenoble players will enter its second and final week. It will begin with a much-awaited moment, the speaking of the alleged victim, 21 years old at the time of the events. She was a student and had just taken an exam on the morning of March 11. In the evening, she was relaxing with a few friends in a pub in downtown Bordeaux when she came across the group of FCG players who had just played a Top 14 match against UBB. It was then the chain that took her to the hotel in Mérignac where she spent the night before she filed a complaint the next day during the day. Seven years later, she finished her studies and entered working life. For a week she has been confronting this painful past, assisted by her loved ones, a friend and two activists from a victim support association who were allowed to stay in the room. Because the young girl asked for the closed session, as she did in June.
Friday, the executives of FC Grenoble at the time came to speak. But they were not present at the strategic moments of this fatal night, where an argument between two players would also have changed things…https://t.co/G0adVKbznb
— RUGBYRAMA (@RugbyramaFR) https://twitter.com/RugbyramaFR/status/1865139842218094856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
She will give her version of the facts. She believes she was attacked in a room by three players, one of whom used objects (banana, plastic bottle, crutch). Obviously, his testimony is at the heart of this matter. There is no doubt that the antics did take place, in several episodes, roughly between 4:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. The whole case hinges on one thing: was she aware of what she was doing? Was she able to give consent? Was she completely under the influence of alcohol? Her lawyers (the civil party) believe that she was not able to express her agreement.
There are four of them surrounding him: Anne Cadiot-Feidt, Victoria Nauche, Gaessy Gros and Grégoire Mouly. This number of defenders, which may be surprising, is explained by the need to face the defense of five accused, who have a total of eleven experienced lawyers.
The young girl will undoubtedly be questioned extensively, by the president and by the lawyers of the accused. We can imagine that they will go all out. They will rely on several arguments, but above all on a sentence from the testimony of the alleged victim when she filed a complaint. Loick Jammes’ lawyer, Denis Dreyfus, reminded us last Tuesday: “ When I discovered this file, I read this sentence in the first statements of the civil party: “I’m afraid I consented”. I said to myself that there was a big difficulty in this case regarding the notion of rape.”
Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, Denis Coulson's lawyer, also risks using this famous phrase after telling us: “His behavior is ambiguous to say the least. And this sentence is evocative of this ambiguity. I think she later regretted finding herself in that situation with those rugby players.”
The subtlety of the definition of rape
We know that the notion of consent does not exist in French criminal law, which defines rape as follows: “TAny act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, or any oral-genital act committed on the person of another or on the person of the perpetrator by violence, coercion, threat or surprise is rape. L’introduction in the law of this The notion of consent is currently under debate. But Anne Cadiot-Feidt at the beginning of last week had clarified his thoughts to us by playing on this notion of surprise provided for by law: “Consent is when you say yes! , When we say nothing, and we say no, that means we are not consenting Maybe we'll stop splitting hairs. In the current definition of rape, there is also the word surprise, the word “surprise”, not taken in the narrowest sense possible, but in the sense of the French word, that is to say when the We surprise others when they don't expect it and when they don't have time to react, or when they can't react. So the definition is there. And in this case, but this is my position as lawyer for the civil party, I consider that there was no consent and that there was not even the possibility of consent with regard to the physiological physical state of my client.”
We were also reminded a recent development in the case law of the Court of Cassation. In its judgment of September 11, it indicates that the effect of “astonishment” of the victim, in a sexual assault case, does not testify to his consent.
After the victim speaks, Monday afternoon will be reserved for theaudition of the expert psychiatrists and psychologists.
