Ireland duo Paddy Jackson, Stuart Olding found not guilty of rape
ByReuters
Updated 28/03/2018 at 12:15 GMT
Ireland rugby internationals Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding were found not guilty by a Belfast court on Wednesday of raping the same woman at a party in Jackson's home in 2016 after an eight-week trial.
Paddy Jackson arrives at Belfast Laganside courts on March 7, 2018 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Image credit: Eurosport
Ulster flyhalf Jackson, 26, was also found not guilty on a separate charge of sexual assault after the jury deliberated for 3 hours and 45 minutes.
Two other men who faced charges in connection with the same incident were acquitted.
Neither of the players, who have represented their country a combined 29 times, have played at club or national level since they were charged in July last year.
The defendents hugged their families outside the courtroom after the judge told them they could leave. Some people cried in the public gallery after the unanimous verdict was read out.
Jackson and Olding, 25, were accused in engaging in sexual activity with the woman "against her wishes" in the early hours of June 28, 2016.
A lawyer for the Public Prosecution Service told the trial that Jackson had "not sought her consent and indeed used force to achieve his aim", and that Olding entered the bedroom while the complainant was being raped and joined in.
In the hours after the alleged incident, the woman attended a sexual health clinic and a sexual assault referral centre before making her first statement to the police the following day.
Under cross-examination, Jackson repeatedly denied he had forced the girl to perform sex acts against her will.
He said the complainant was one of a number of women that returned to his house after meeting the rugby players and their friends in a Belfast nightclub the day after they returned home from Ireland's tour of South Africa.
Jackson said the woman had followed him to his bedroom on two separate occasions for consensual sexual activity.
Olding said he was "in complete control" of his actions following a day of heavy drinking with Jackson and others, and that he was "100 percent sure" what had happened had been consensual.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement