Appeals court to rule on rape charges against Besson

Justice is once again preparing to rule on an emblematic case of the #MeToo era.

The Paris Court of Appeal will indeed deliver its verdict on Tuesday morning on the rape charges against director Luc Besson, who was dismissed in December.

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.

A "professional relationship"

On May 18, 2018, the actress filed a complaint for rape, a few hours after an appointment 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 "sweetness".

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”.

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

by Luc Besson, then filed a complaint with a civil action and obtained, despite a refusal from the Paris prosecutor's office, referral to an examining magistrate in October. 2019.

Besson's "regrets" about this "light and pleasant" relationship

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.

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.

The actress' lawyers, Me Antoine Gitton and Me Francis Szpiner, have also recently submitted an analysis by four doctors confirming the existence and compatibility of her intimate injuries with her version of the facts denounced.

The 63-year-old producer, known for

, The

or

, rejects these accusations and evokes a "light and pleasant" extra-marital relationship, mutually consented to.

“I have never physically or morally forced a woman into anything”, he assured in October 2019, evoking “regrets” about this relationship “when indeed there is a relationship of subordination”.

Justice

Sexual violence: Pierre Joxe and Eric Brion definitively dismissed, a "victory for the #MeToo movement"

Justice

An administrator of the feminist collective 50/50 tried in September for sexual assault

• Justice

• Luc Besson

• Paris

• court of appeal

• Rape

• sexual assault

• MeToo

• Ile-de-France