PARIS | The Paris Court of Appeal rules Tuesday morning on the rape charges against director Luc Besson, an emblematic case of the #MeToo era which was dismissed in December.
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On April 19, the investigating chamber examined the appeal of the Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy against the abandonment of the proceedings from which the influential French filmmaker and producer benefited on December 9. The public prosecutor requested confirmation of the dismissal.
On May 18, 2018, the actress filed a complaint for rape, a few hours after a meeting in a Parisian palace, the protagonists of which gave two versions: according to Sand Van Roy, an imposed digital anal penetration then a fainting, despite his orders to stop. For Luc Besson, a consented vaginal intercourse imbued with “gentleness”.
Two months later, the actress filed a complaint for other rapes and sexual assaults committed between 2016 and 2018, episodes of a “relationship of professional influence” under threats of “retaliation on her career as an actress” with that who created the Cité du Cinéma in the north of Paris.
During the preliminary investigation, the filmmaker and the actress were confronted in December 2018, before the closing of the investigation, in February 2019, by the Paris prosecutor’s office, which considered that it had not been able to “characterize the offense denounced”.
The actress, who appears in “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” by Luc Besson, then filed a complaint with civil action and obtained, despite a refusal from the Paris prosecutor’s office, referral to an investigating judge. in October 2019.
Two years later, on December 9, an instructing magistrate issued a dismissal order “in the absence of any material element to support the statements” of the 34-year-old complainant.
“Subordination”
A vision rejected by Sand Van Roy who filed a complaint against the judge for “false” and radically contests the content of the judicial information, according to her biased and incomplete.
“Luc Besson has never been confronted with the material evidence which overwhelms him, for example the photographic report made to the medico-judicial units on the day of the events, the blows and injuries on the body of the civil party which accredits the rape recounted by this one and directly contradicts the declarations of Luc Besson”, denounces Me Antoine Gitton, lawyer of Sand Van Roy with Me Francis Szpiner.
They recently paid an analysis of four doctors confirming the existence and the compatibility of his intimate wounds with his version of the facts denounced.
“It’s been exactly 4 years since I made the huge mistake of believing that France will protect me when I called the police after the rape. Since then, I have only experienced injustice, even the falsification of my medical file,” the Belgian-Dutch actress said on Twitter on May 18.
His advice has asked since the hearing of April 19 the challenge of the magistrate of the Court of Appeal who must rule on this dismissal, “a pure fiction written for Mr. Besson”.
The 63-year-old producer, known for “The Big Blue”, the “Fifth Element” or “Léon”, rejects these accusations and evokes a “light and pleasant” extramarital relationship, mutually consented to.
“I have never physically or morally forced a woman into anything”, he assured in October 2019, evoking “regrets” on this relationship “when indeed there is a relationship of subordination”.
“We calmly await the decision of the Court of Appeal, with the concordant position of the Paris prosecutor’s office, the investigating judge and the general prosecutor’s office who have all concluded that Luc Besson is innocent”, commented his lawyer Me Thierry Marembert.
The producer is one of the French figures caught in the wave of accusations from women who claim to have been victims of rape or sexual assault in the wake of the fall of American producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017.
In court, at least three women mentioned facts ranging from “kisses on the neck” to “attempted rape”, disputed by Mr. Besson.
Other women had also testified to Mediapart about inappropriate gestures or sexual assaults, often prescribed, on the part of the director.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com