She wakes up naked with a crutch in her vagina: three ex-Grenoble players tried for gang rape of a student

La cour d’assises de la Gironde juge à partir de lundi cinq anciens joueurs de Grenoble, dont trois pour viol en réunion. MAXPPP – STEPHANE LARTIGUE

L’alcool est au centre de cette affaire. La victime et les cinq prévenus étaient tous totalement ivres lors d’une soirée à Bordeaux, en 2017.

The affair had shaken the world of rugby: the Gironde Assize Court will judge five former Grenoble players from Monday, including three for rape in a meeting on a student, during a party after a match in Bordeaux in 2017.

In this case where the question of consent will be at the heart of the debates, the accused assure that nothing took place under duress, but the young woman's lawyer questions this notion in a heavily alcoholic context.

"What is consent ? When is it attenuated, or even completely abolished ?", asks Me Anne Cadiot-Feidt, one of the four lawyers for the victim, V., now 27 years old. The latter, recently graduated, wishes to remain anonymous, "in particular to protect her profession" and lead a personal life far from any media coverage, explains his defense.

In the middle of business #MeeToo

On the dock until June 28, five ex-Grenoble players: Irishman Denis Coulson, 30, New Zealander Rory Grice , 34, and Frenchman Loïck Jammes, 29, are accused of raping her. Irishman Chris Farrell, 31, and New Zealander Dylan Hayes, 30, are appearing for failure to prevent a crime.

On March 11, 2017, a few months before the outbreak of the “#MeToo affair” on the other side of the Atlantic, V. and two friends met the five men in a bar in Bordeaux, where the Grenoble players had played a Top 14 match that same day. The evening continued in a nightclub.

Mojitos and Vodka-Red Bull flowed freely. Around 4 a.m., V. left in a taxi with Denis Coulson for the players' hotel but claims to no longer remember anything after leaving the nightclub. According to a toxicology expert, she would have had between 2.2 and 3 grams of alcohol per liter of blood at that time.

She wakes up naked with a crutch in her vagina

On video surveillance images upon her arrival at the hotel, she has difficulty standing and is supported by Denis Coulson who appears to twice prevent her from returning to the taxi.

Around 7 a.m., the young woman said she was coming to her senses, naked on a bed, with a crutch in her vagina, surrounded by two naked men and others dressed. At the trial, the discussions will address "perhaps the notion of responsibility that a victim may have in the event that she voluntarily put herself in a state causing attenuated or even abolished consent. Can she be held responsible for the violence to which she was subjected ?", asks Me Cadiot-Feidt, anticipating the defense of the accused.

"We often ask ourselves the question of the victim's consent, and not at all the appreciation of consent by the attackers", she emphasizes, evoking "robbers of the soul and the body".

The question of consent

Based on the hearings of the accused, witnesses and a video shot by Denis Coulson during a sexual act, the investigators mention in particular several fellatios, as well as the introduction of ;rsquo;a banana, a bottle and crutches in the young woman's vagina.

Coulson, Jammes and Grice admitted to having had sexual relations with V. but assured that she was consenting and had even taken initiatives in this hotel room in Mérignac near Bordeaux . Farrell, who owned the crutches, was in the room during the incident and Hayes witnessed the scene.

For Mr. Jammes' lawyer, Mr. Denis Dreyfus, the debates will revolve around the notion of consent and its difficulty in a context "of’general alcoholism& quot;. "What is certain is that it’s a misfortune for everyone", he says -il.

This is not the trial of rapist rugby players, it’s the trial of alcohol

"This is not the trial of rapist rugby players, it’s the trial of alcohol"< /em>, insists Me Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, lawyer for Denis Coulson, who deplores a "climate", linked to #MeToo, which "is not conducive to understanding". "All these young people who drink until they get into impossible states, that's the problem with this issue", she said .