RUGBY PAIR POSE WITH THEIR FANS JUST HOURS BEFORE THEY WERE ACCUSED OF RAPE
THESE are the first pictures of rugby stars Stuart Olding and Paddy Jackson posing with fans on the night of the threesome that led to them being charged with rape.
Olding and Mr Jackson are seen posing happily with fans who subsequently uploaded the snaps to their social-media accounts.
The rape trial heard evidence that Mr Jackson and Mr Olding posed with fans in Cutters Wharf Bar and Ollie’s nightclub, while they and fellow accused Rory Harrison and Blane McIlroy enjoyed a boozefuelled welcome home from the rugby tour of South Africa.
It comes as the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that Mr Jackson had just broken up with his girlfriend a month before the incident that saw him accused of rape in 2016. Laura McCrea, a solicitor and Presbyterian minister’s daughter from Belfast, had split from the rugby star just a month before the now notorious night of June 28, 2016. Less than three months previously, Mr Jackson and Ms McCrea had enjoyed a holiday in Barbados, courtesy of businessman JP McManus. The billionaire had given each member of the Ireland rugby squad a free week stay in his luxury Sandy Lane Hotel. In the first week in April, the pair had joined fellow Ulster rugby player star Chris Henry as he celebrated his engagement to Jade Hamilton at the resort.
The couples were pictured snorkelling, paddle boarding and lying in the sun.
After returning home on April 10, Ms McCrea, who had previously worked at Hollister clothes shop, was offered a contract at legal firm Arthur Cox.
The couple split at the end of May, days before Mr Jackson left on June 5 for a tour of South Africa with the Ireland rugby team. In an interesting coincidence, his ex-girlfriend was at Belfast’s upmarket Merchant Hotel the night after Mr Jackson and his friends had attended Ollie’s nightclub downstairs.
An Instagram post shows her with friends and a cocktail in hand on the hotel’s rooftop bar.
The previous evening, Mr Jackson had returned from a successful trip to South Africa with the Irish rugby squad and celebrated in the hotel nightclub.
Ms McCrea, who works in Belfast, told the MoS this week that she had spilt with Mr Jackson a month before that evening and that she had not followed his trial.
‘I stepped back from it, to be honest,’ she said.
Ms McCrea lives with her family including her father, the Reverend Philip McCrea, at the Rosemary
Presbyterian manse in Belfast.
The church’s website says it is a ‘family church with around 300 families’.
‘Our church welcomes everyone,’ it continues, ‘and is situated in north Belfast in a constantly changing community of Protestants, Roman Catholics and members of the Jewish Community.’
Ms McCrea, 27, attended the prestigious Belfast Royal Academy secondary school alongside Stuart Olding, Mr Jackson’s fellow accused, who was also cleared of rape this week.
Her facebook account shows she is a friend of both Olding and Rory Harrison, who was cleared this week of perverting the course of justice in the rape trial. However, her account and Mr Jackson’s are not linked.