In a closely watched legal outcome that closes one chapter of a high-profile sexual assault case, a French appellate court has upheld severe prison sentences for three former professional rugby players convicted of the 2017 gang rape of a 20-year-old female student, rejecting their challenges to the original 2024 guilty verdict.
The three defendants—31-year-old Irish national Denis Coulson, 31-year-old French native Loick Jammes, and 36-year-old New Zealander Rory Grice—all former members of France’s Grenoble Rugby Club, received the same penalties handed down in their initial 2024 Bordeaux trial: 14 years behind bars for Coulson and Jammes, and a 12-year sentence for Grice. Delivering the ruling from the bench in the southwestern French city of Angouleme, the presiding judge confirmed that no substantial new evidence or material change to the case justified altering the original conviction, noting the court found “an absence of significant evolution compared to the previous decision.”
The courtroom was marked by raw emotion when the verdict was read. The three defendants remained silent and motionless in the dock before conferring with their legal teams, while several of their family members in the gallery were visibly overcome with tears. The victim, who has only been publicly identified by the initial V. to protect her privacy, was not present for the appellate ruling.
The case traces back to the early hours of March 12, 2017, shortly after Grenoble lost a Top 14 French league match against Bordeaux-Begles. The victim told investigators she met the three players at a local bar with friends, accompanied the group to a nearby nightclub where all attendees consumed large amounts of alcohol, and has no memory of traveling from the nightclub to an outskirt Bordeaux hotel where the Grenoble team was staying overnight. She told police she woke up naked in a hotel bed with a crutch inserted inside her vagina, and spotted two naked men in the room alongside other fully dressed individuals before leaving the hotel in tears. She filed an official police complaint shortly after the attack.
Throughout both the original trial and appellate proceedings, the three defendants maintained that all sexual contact with V. was consensual, claiming the student had initiated the encounter. Their legal team relied on a video recording of the incident filmed by one of the defendants to support their claim of consent.
Following the appellate ruling, defense attorneys announced they would take the case to France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest judicial body that reviews questions of legal procedure and lower court rulings. Coulson’s lawyer called the verdict a shock, describing the upheld sentence as a “repetition of an excessive and disproportionate punishment.” Jammes’s attorney, Denis Dreyfus, argued his client had been penalized for refusing to admit guilt, adding, “If this is how the appeals process is conceived, it’s frightening.”
For the victim and her legal team, the ruling brought a sense of closure after years of legal wrangling. The victim’s lawyer described the nine-year legal battle as “a terrible journey, marked by repeated setbacks” and said the defense team was relieved by the appellate court’s decision.
Two other Grenoble teammates who were convicted for failing to intervene in the attack did not challenge their original convictions. Irish player Chris Farrell received a four-year prison sentence with two years suspended, while New Zealander Dylan Hayes was handed a two-year fully suspended sentence.