Criminal trial over gang rape of five rugby players postponed as Irish defendant taken to hospital after road accident

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

The 30-year-old Dubliner, who represented his country in the U20 national team, was due to appear in the dock at the assize court in Bordeaux, south-west France, on Monday afternoon.

He is said to have been involved in the sexual assault on the 21-year-old together with the Frenchman Loick Jammes (29) and the New Zealander Rory Grice (34).

Chris Farrell, 31, winner of the Six Nations Championship with Ireland, is meanwhile accused of “failing to prevent the crime”, as is Dylan Hayes, 30, from New Zealand.

However, at the start of the trial, the judges were informed that Coulson had been seriously injured in a car accident last Wednesday.

His lawyer Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt said in court: “He had an extremely serious traffic accident and is currently in hospital. We do not yet know how the situation will develop.”

Anne Cadiot-Feidt, who represents the alleged victim of the gang rape – whose name cannot be mentioned for legal reasons – said: “Our client is not at all happy with this postponement, but we have to accept what happened.

“To be perfectly honest, we can’t do without Coulson. If Coulson hadn’t done what he did, we wouldn’t be in criminal court,” she added.

All five defendants were teammates of FC Grenoble in eastern France when the gang rape allegedly took place on March 12, 2017 in a hotel in Merignac, a suburb of Bordeaux, where the city’s airport is located.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing and claim that the woman in question agreed to have sex with three of them, even though they were all extremely drunk.

She is said to have met the players in a pub after her team played a match against Union Bordeaux-Bègles.

She then accompanied the five men to a disco in Bordeaux, where, according to evidence previously heard in court, they all drank heavily.

The woman then walked with the Grenoble players to their hotel at around 4am, where the party was captured on video footage. The group appeared to be very drunk and barely able to stand on their feet.

Coulson is said to have recorded a video with his mobile phone showing the woman engaging in sexual acts, French prosecutors claim.

She later told a taxi driver: “I was raped. There were several.” A few hours later, she filed a complaint with the Bordeaux police.

The victim later told the judges that the men had inserted various objects, including a banana, a bottle and a crutch, into her vagina.

Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, Denis Coulson’s lawyer, said before the court: “This is not a trial against rugby players who are rapists, but a trial against alcohol.”

“All these young people drinking to the point of insanity – that’s the problem in this case.”

All five players continued their professional careers after their arrest and were subsequently released on bail, but two of them – Coulson and Hayes – have since retired.

Her trial was supposed to last ten days, but has now been postponed to a date yet to be determined.