Socialite Kieron Ducie, who was with model Katie French on the night she took a drug overdose which led to her death in 2007, is facing charges of assault after he was arrested by gardaí at a nightclub in a Dublin suburb in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Gardaí confirmed that Kieron Ducie (40) was arrested outside the Wright Venue nightclub in Swords at about 3.30am yesterday morning and was charged with assault and a public-order offence.

Nightclub staff called gardaí to the scene after an altercation outside the nightclub and Ducie was arrested and then taken to Swords station.

Ducie was with his girlfriend at the nightclub, and it is understood that gardaí questioned her about the incident.

Ducie is expected to appear at Dublin district court later this week.

Model Katie French (24) collapsed at the home of Ducie, Lambertstown Manor on the outskirts of Kilmessan, Co Meath, on Sunday, 2 December, 2007.

His former girlfriend Ann Corcoran was also present in the house on the night of the incident.

Ducie rushed French to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan in his car later that morning.

She died four days later at the hospital when her family decided to switch off a life-support machine after she had suffered a series of heart attacks and fallen into a coma. A postmortem subsequently revealed she had suffered irreversible brain damage.

More than 50 people have been questioned as part of the investigation, including Ducie and Corcoran, but no charges have ever been brought against either of them in relation to the death of French.

Kieron Ducie is the son of Kevin Ducie, who runs a successful trucking business in Ashbourne, Co Meath.