Former New Zealand international and former Stade Toulousain player Byron Kelleher was sentenced Monday to six months in prison with a two-year probationary suspension by the Paris judicial court for domestic violence against his ex-partner. “In our culture, women come before everyone else,” defended the former scrum half in English.
These words did not convince the court which declared Byron Kelleher, 47, guilty of the facts with which he was accused. He will also have to pay a fine of 1,000 euros and pay 800 euros to his ex-partner for moral damage.
In June 2023, under the influence of alcohol – which he denies – the former All Black (57 caps) attacked his partner and mother of their son. Insults, blows to the face and chest, said the president of the 24th chamber while exposing the facts. The complainant says that her companion dragged her down a corridor while pulling her hair. “I do not recognize the facts,” replied Kelleher, who also denied “a problem with alcohol (…) I drink like everyone else drinks.” On the evening of the events, he admitted to having simply “drank a few glasses of rosé wine” with a friend.
“Not convincing” remarks according to the prosecutor
Her former partner explained that she had to take refuge in the bathroom and then in the toilet to escape the blows. According to the ex-rugby player, it was his wife who attacked him. He only defended himself by grabbing her wrists. “She broke my tooth,” he complained in particular.
His ex-wife, who filed a complaint more than a month after the incident, told the court that she “saw herself dying”. “He scares me,” she also said. Other acts of violence, not upheld by the court, would have taken place, in particular during a stay of the couple on Mauritius or even in Monaco. My client “wants above all to protect herself and her son,” argued the plaintiff’s lawyer, Me Thibaut Rouffiac.
The prosecutor considered Kelleher’s comments “not coherent, not convincing and not relevant”. For the latter’s lawyer, Me Emmanuelle Jallifier-Verne, the complainant was “not always very nice” towards her client, a “living rugby legend”. “Of course, there was an argument,” she conceded, “but in no way was there violence. »
He had already been convicted in 2016 for domestic violence
The couple met in Toulouse in 2010. A son was born from their union in 2015 but the couple separated shortly after the birth of the child, already due, according to the complainant, to “verbal and physical violence “. Byron Kelleher returned to New Zealand before returning to France in February 2022 and resuming life together with his partner. According to her, the violence resumed just a month after her return to France.
This is not the first time that Byron Kelleher has appeared before French justice. It started in 2009 following a brawl in Toulouse after a collision while he was driving under the influence of alcohol. He was then briefly placed in police custody in October 2013 for “drunk driving” in Bordeaux. In 2017, he was fined 200 euros for damage and domestic violence committed in 2016 with another woman.
