Pau (AFP)
Former English international rugby player Steffon Armitage, a former player in Toulon and Pau, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison suspended for sexual assault on a young woman during a drunken evening, facts dating back to the end of 2018 , we learned from the lawyers.
Armitage, aged 34, acknowledged the facts at the hearing of the Guilty Plea by Guilty Plea (CRPC) in the Pau Criminal Court, which validated the proposed sentence, six months suspended and 5,000 euros in damages. The sentence will not be recorded in his criminal record.
The player "did not recognize himself in the behavior he had" that evening told the press the player's lawyer, Me Jean-Philippe Debruge. He explained that the player got drunk that night because he was "not selected to face Gloucester the next day in Europe Cup, that he has trouble preparing for his conversion and that his great -mother is deceased ".
At the exit of a night bar, the player had taken the young woman of 19 years, touching her chest. The young woman had complained.
This "is always" shocked, told the lawyer of the civil party Me Carole Sesma, for whom his client "was treated as a sexual object.And (...) there had been comments other rugby players who told her that she should be happy to have been touched by someone known to be, it's unacceptable to hear that in the 21st century! "
She nevertheless said she was "relieved" by the required and validated sentence, according to her "adapted".
Steffon Armitage, international in 2009-2010 for England, who had been unemployed since the end of his last season with Pau, has signed with the San Diego club, in American Major League Rugby, which he must join in end of year.
© 2019 AFP