PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 09: Fabien Galthié attends the French Open 2021 at Roland Garros on June 09, 2021 in Paris, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images,)
The proceedings started in the early afternoon but the court had to postpone the trial as one of the three co-accused of gang rape, Irishman Denis Coulson, was absent.
“Unfortunately, he was involved in an extremely serious road accident,” said his lawyer Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt. “He is still in hospital with polytrauma.”
The trial in southwestern city Bordeaux, scene of the suspected rape, will therefore take place to a later date, from 2 to 13 December 2024.
It will turn on whether a young woman, now 27, was too drunk to consent to sex.
Named only as V., the plaintiff has opted for anonymity to protect her personal and professional lives, her lawyers say.
Irishman Denis Coulson, 30, New Zealander Rory Grice, 34, and French 29-year-old Loick Jammes are accused of raping the plaintiff.
Two fellow players, 31-year-old Irishman Chris Farrell – a member of Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning 2018 Six Nations squad – and New Zealander Dylan Hayes, 30, are being tried for failing to prevent a crime.
V. and two friends encountered the rugby players in a Bordeaux bar after the Grenoble team played a Top 14 championship match on 11 March, 2017 – a few months before the #MeToo movement was sparked in the United States.
The group guzzled cocktails including mojitos and Vodka-Red Bull as they moved on to a nightclub.
V. said she remembered nothing about how the night ended after leaving the nightclub.
She boarded a taxi headed for the players’ hotel with Coulson around 4.00 am.
A toxicologist’s report found that V. had between 2.2 and 3.0 grams of alcohol per litre of blood at that point – well over 10 times the maximum allowed when driving in France.
Surveillance footage from her arrival at the hotel shows her struggling to stand as Coulson supports her.
He also appears to twice prevent her from re-boarding the taxi.
