The civil party, a young woman aged 27 today and 20 at the time of the events, obtained this Monday that the trial of her attackers, former rugby players of FC Grenoble, take place behind closed doors. Five players are on trial before the Gironde Assize Court, in Bordeaux: three of them for gang rape and two others for failure to assist a person in danger.
The request, legally given the nature of the facts, was granted by the court. The defense noted that the civil party had spoken to the press before the hearing, which it considered to be in contradiction with the request for a closed session. The trial was to be held in June but was postponed after the accident involving Denis Coulson, one of the three main accused. He appeared in court this Monday, walking with a crutch.
On the night of March 11 to 12, 2017, the young woman, then a student, went out with friends to a pub and met one of the players, Denis Coulson, whose team had just lost against UBB. The drunken evening continues in a discotheque on the quays.
Un black-out total
During the investigation, the young woman describes a total blackout between the moment when she danced and drank vodka in the establishment and the moment when she woke up naked and surrounded by several men, in a hotel room in Mérignac. It is with Denis Coulson that she takes a taxi to reach this hotel where the team is staying. CCTV footage shows that he almost has to carry it when they get out of the vehicle.
A video was made in a bedroom, by one of the players having had sex. We see in particular the young woman being penetrated by one of the players with a plastic bottle and a banana. Three FCG players Denis Coulson, Loïck Jammes and Rory Grice admit to having had sexual relations with the young woman and maintain that she was consenting and active during the intercourse.
Two “spectator” players
One of the “spectators” of the scene, prosecuted for failure to assist a person in danger, supports their version by invoking “sexual noises” supposed to show his consent. The other, injured during the match in the ankle, explains that he was in pain and did not understand the young woman's distress at that time.
For the investigating magistrate “the testimonies collected and the analysis of the hotel videos demonstrated without any ambiguity that, given his extremely advanced state of intoxication, the civil party was not in a position to consent to a sexual act . »
The verdict is expected on December 13.
