Irish former rugby player Denis Coulson has been sentenced by a court in France to 14 years in prison after being found guilty of raping a woman in Bordeaux in 2017.
The trial was for allegations of gang rape of a 20-year-old student in southwestern France in March 2017.
The verdicts were delivered on Friday evening in a criminal trial court at La Cour d’Assises, in the southwestern region of Gironde, in France, RTÉ reported.
Dublin man Coulson, who is a former Irish U20 prop, was playing for French club FC Grenoble at the time of the incident.
The court found him guilty of raping the woman in a hotel room in Mérignac, on the outskirts of Bordeaux.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Separately, former Irish international Chris Farrell, who was his teammate at the time, was given a four-year sentence with two of those suspended for failure to prevent a crime.
Farrell is a centre from Fivemiletown, Co Tyrone, who played 15 times for Ireland, including in the 2019 World Cup.
He was also a member of Ireland’s Grand Slam winning squad in 2018.
The court heard that he will not spend any time behind bars but will have to wear an electronic tag and stay in France.
There were three other defendants in the case who were handed down guilty verdicts at the trial, which was held privately, away from the media behind closed doors, at the victim’s request.
Loick Jammes, (30) from France was found guilty of rape and given a 14-year sentence., while 34-year-old Rory Grice (34) from New Zealand was found guilty of rape and given a 12-year sentence.
Additionally, 30-year-old Dylan Hayes from New Zealand was also given a two-year suspended sentence for failure to prevent a crime.
The court heard that all five defendants, who were teammates at FC Grenoble at the time, had denied the charges against them.
Deliberations lasting around nine hours.
In March 12, 2017, the student said she was in tears as she left a hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux, where the Grenoble team spent the night after losing a league match against Bordeaux-Begles.
The court heard that the woman met the group of five while out socialising with two of her friends in a pub in Bordeaux and joined them in a nightclub after.
According to an account given to prosecutors, and previously reported in the French newspaper Le Monde, she woke up the next morning naked in a hotel room surrounded by rugby players.
Later that day, she filed a complaint with police, alleging she had been the subject of a gang rape.
The three men convicted of rape had told investigators that they had sexual relations with the victim, but claimed that the encounter was consensual.