They are accused of having raped a young woman or of having witnessed the attack without intervening, after an alcoholic “third half” in Bordeaux in 2017: five ex-rugbymen from Grenoble began to appear Monday afternoon before 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, now 30 years old, 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.
– Partial closed session –
The media will not be able to attend the hearings, the president having declared a partial closed session, after a new request to this effect from the victim's lawyers.
One of them, Me Gaessy Gros, recognized that complete publicity of the debates, as requested by Gisèle Pelicot at the Mazan rape trial, “was important for society”. “But we also saw the excesses that it could cause,” he added. “Our client is not capable of supporting all of this.”
According to him, the victim “is prey to multiple contradictory feelings”, between “can't wait” “for this trial to take place and for the outcome of what took place seven years ago to finally take place” and “fear of to face her attackers” “and to relive once again what she has already experienced”.
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 Union Bordeaux-Bègles, on local club.
The student filed a complaint, declaring that she had met FCG players in a bar and followed them to a nightclub, where alcohol had flowed freely.
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.
– “Not in a state to consent” –
“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+,” Coulson's lawyer, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, declared before the hearing.
Based on the interviews of the accused, witnesses and a sex tape filmed by Coulson, investigators mention several fellatios and the introduction of a banana, a bottle and crutches into the victim's vagina.
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.
“We see that she is absolutely in no condition to consent and these gentlemen carried her, these gentlemen were with her, they knew it full well,” Mr. Gros declared on Monday. Silence is not worth consent and even more so when we know that the person is very heavily intoxicated.”
“The right attitude was to put Madame in a taxi or to put her to bed,” he added.
Three of the five defendants – Grice, Jammes and Farrell – are still professional rugby players. Coulson has become a construction site manager and Hayes is unemployed.
Several cases have recently tarnished the image of French rugby, including the indictment of Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou for aggravated rape in Argentina during the French XV tour last July. The decision concerning a possible dismissal of the two internationals is currently under deliberation.
