Former Australian and Leinster rugby player Rocky Elsom has left Ireland after gardaí arrived at his work and home to take him into custody.
In October the 41-year-old was found guilty in France of forgery, use of forgery and misuse of corporate assets in 2014 and 2015 while he was president of the French club, Narbonne. A court in the French city sentenced him in absentia to five years in prison. He was ordered to repay some €700,000 to the club and an international arrest warrant was issued.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald published on Friday, Mr Elsom said: “The gardaí came to where I worked, came to my home, with the intention of taking me into custody.”
The newspaper reports that Mr Elsom, who did not disclose how he left the country or. his location, only saying he is no longer in Ireland.
“I have to go outside at some point but I am keeping my head down, that’s for sure,” he said. “I’ve just got to try and normalise it to a degree... be able to get enough sunlight or do some exercise. Because this is month one. In a way the attack on me has been going on for eight years so you wouldn’t put it past them to be going on for months and months.
“All I can say is I spoke to the gardaí and they said if I’m in Ireland they’ll have to bring me in,” he told the paper, adding: “So I told them I wasn’t in Ireland, and I wasn’t going to be in Ireland any time soon.”
Mr Elsom said his defence would be “a lot more expensive and a lot harder” if he is in custody, and he is currently working with a French lawyer to oppose the finding made against him.
Until recently he was living in south Dublin, where he worked as a rugby coach at the Catholic University School on Leeson Street. He previously said he was not informed of the court hearing or given an opportunity to defend the allegations, which he denies.
In the interview he criticised the trial saying: “Not informing me, not allowing me to be there, running a rumour campaign for eight years... the most concerning thing is thinking that it was intentional... that it was intentionally done to make things harder for me.”
He added that he is hopeful the Australian government will examine his case. “If an Australian citizen is unlikely to get a fair trial in a foreign country, then at the very least I think they are obliged to look into it,” he said.
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