French rape trial adjourned due to Irish rugby player's involvement in 'extremely serious road accident'

The criminal trial of five rugby players accused of gang raping a student was adjourned on Monday following a serious road accident involving Irish defendant Denis Coulson.

The 30-year-old Dubliner, who represented his country at Under-20 level, was due in the dock of the Bordeaux Assizes, in southwest France, on Monday afternoon. He is alleged to have taken part in the sex attack on the alleged victim, who was 21 at the time of the incident, along with Frenchman Loick Jammes, 29, and New Zealander Rory Grice, 34.

Chris Farrell, 31 and a Six Nations Championship winner with Ireland, is meanwhile accused of ‘failing to prevent the crime’, along with Dylan Hayes, 30, from New Zealand. But at the start of proceedings, judges were told that Coulson was badly hurt in a car accident last Wednesday, June 12.

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His lawyer, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, told the court: "He suffered an extremely serious road accident, and is hospitalised as we speak. We do not yet know how the situation will develop."

In turn, Anne Cadiot-Feidt, who is representing the alleged victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said: "Our client is not happy at all with this postponement, but we have to accept what has happened. We cannot do without Coulson, to be very frank."

All five defendants were teammates playing for FC Grenoble, in eastern France, when the alleged offence is said to have happened in a hotel in Merignac, a suburb of Bordeaux where the city airport is situated, on March 12, 2017. The accused deny any wrongdoing, and claim that the woman involved consented to sex with three of them while all were extremely drunk.

Chris Farrell (2ndL) and Denis Coulson (R) arrive on March 21, 2017 at the police station in Grenoble, French Alps
(Image: JEAN-PIERRE CLATOT/AFP/Getty Images)

She is said to have met the players in a pub after their team played a match against Union Bordeaux-Bègles. She then accompanied the five men to a disco in Bordeaux, where all were seen drinking heavily, according to evidence previously rehearsed in court.

The woman then went with the Grenoble players to their hotel at around 4am, where the party was caught on CCTV looking very drunk, and barely able to stand up. Coulson is said to have recorded a video on his mobile phone showing the woman performing sex acts, it is alleged by French prosecutors.

She later told a taxi driver ‘I was raped. There were several of them’, before filing a complaint to Bordeaux police a few hours later.

Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, lawyer for Denis Coulson, said before going into court: "This is not the trial of rugby players who are rapists, it is the trial of alcohol. All these young people who drink until they are in impossible states – that is the problem in this case."

All five players continued their professional careers after being arrested and then released on bail, but two of them – Coulson and Hayes – have since retired. Their trial was due to last 10 days, and has now been adjourned until a day to be fixed.

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