French court on Monday found England international Steffon Armitage guilty of sexual assault and handed him a suspended prison sentence for groping a woman outside a bar.
Armitage, 34, admitted grabbing the woman’s breasts during a drunken night out at the end of 2018 in the southwestern French town of Pau, where he was playing at the time.
A court in Pau gave him a suspended six-month jail sentence and ordered him to pay the victim 5 000 euros ($5 500) compensation.
Former England rugby international Steffon Armitage is found guilty of sexual assault after groping a woman outside a bar in France as team-mates told her 'she should be grateful' https://t.co/gQZnBhhGyG
— Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) September 23, 2019
Defence lawyer Jean-Philippe Debruge said the back-row forward had been drinking heavily because he had been dropped by Pau for a game against Gloucester the next day.
He said Armitage was also “struggling to prepare for his life after rugby and his grandmother had died.”