Rugby players on trial in France over rape charges

Five rugby players formerly with French side Grenoble go on trial on Monday, accused of raping a student in a hotel in 2017, or failing to prevent the alleged sexual assault.

The trial, held in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux, had originally been scheduled for June but was delayed after one of the defendants, Irish national Denis Coulson, was badly injured in a traffic accident.

Coulson is "still weak" but will be present at the trial, said his lawyer, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt.

The former prop, 30, is accused of gang rape, as are New Zealander Rory Grice, 34, and Frenchman Loick Jammes, 30.

Irish national Chris Farrell, 31, and New Zealander Dylan Hayes, 40, are charged with failure to prevent a crime.

In the small hours of March 12, 2017, the student, identified only as V., was in tears as she left a hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux, where the Grenoble team (FCG) spent the night after losing a Top 14 encounter against local team UBB.

The then 20-year-old filed a complaint with police, saying she had met the players in a bar together with two friends and accompanied them to a nightclub where everybody had a lot to drink.

The student said she had no recollection of how she got from the club to the hotel where she woke up, naked on a bed and with a crutch inserted in her vagina.

She saw two naked men in the room and others fully dressed.

Coulson, Jammes and Grice stated that they had sexual relations with V. but claimed the encounter was consensual and the student had been pro-active in bringing it about.

Farrell, owner of the crutch, was present, as was Hayes.

"Perhaps this girl didn't want what happened to happen but her behaviour did not suggest to these boys, at least to my client, that she was not in agreement," Dreyfus-Schmidt said.

"When you go to a nightclub and you drink a lot, it's not to exchange sweet nothings but to have relations with boys," the lawyer said.

"She was very active. She kissed him (Coulson) in the club, performed fellatio on him in the cab and signaled that she was game."

V.'s lawyer, Anne Cadiot-Feidt, rejected the argument, saying the players had acted "like thugs".

- 'State of weakness' -

On the basis of statements from the accused and witnesses, as well as a sextape shot by Coulson, investigators have concluded that there were several incidents of fellatio, and that a banana, a bottle and crutches were inserted in V.'s vagina.

A toxicology report stated that her blood alcohol level was between 2.2 and 3 grams, a level considered in the danger zone for alcohol poisoning.

CCTV footage showed her having difficulty standing up as she arrived at the hotel and being propped up by a player.

Cadiot-Feidt rejected the players' version, saying of her client, V.: "Nobody can be expected to be perfect all the time."

While the decision to drink as much as she did had been her client's, this did not authorize anybody "to do what they like with her body", she said.

The players, she said, had a duty to "protect" the woman.

"You don't have to be a superhero but you can call a taxi without exploiting, or allowing others to exploit, the state of weakness she was in," the lawyer said.

The three main defendants left Grenoble in 2017 after the accusations emerged, to pursue their careers in other clubs.

Rape accusations have shaken the world of international rugby recently.

The French trial comes just over a week before an Argentine judge is to decide whether to dismiss charges against two French international rugby players accused of raping a woman after a match in the South American country.

Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, both aged 21, were held for weeks in Argentina after the alleged July assault.

And last month, a Fijian player at the French southwestern club Dax was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term for sexual assault and violence during a drink-fueled evening.