(Paris) The Court of Cassation, the highest jurisdiction of the French judiciary, will deliver its decision on Wednesday on the accusations of rape by Belgian-Dutch actress Sand Van Roy against director Luc Besson.
On May 18, 2018, the 35-year-old actress filed a complaint for rape, a few hours after an appointment in a Parisian palace, the protagonists of which gave two versions.
For Sand Van Roy, the influential filmmaker had imposed on him digital penetration, a source of fainting, despite his injunctions to stop. A version according to her accredited by findings, the day of the facts, by the medico-judicial emergencies.
Two months later, the actress filed a complaint against the filmmaker for other rapes and sexual assaults committed, according to her, between 2016 and 2018, episodes of a “relationship of professional influence” under threats of “retaliation on his acting career”.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE SIMON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Sand Van Roy was present at the Cannes Film Festival last May.
Luc Besson regretted an extramarital relationship in a context of “subordination”, while the actress had shot in some of her films. But he indicated twice that he had “no recollection” of some of the facts denounced and recounted a consented report imbued with “gentleness”.
The judicial investigation was the subject of a first dismissal, in December 2021, confirmed by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2022.
The defense of the actress had therefore appealed to the Court of Cassation, considering that the judgment of the Court of Appeal was tainted with procedural irregularities, would have “distorted” certain elements of the file.
The 64-year-old director and producer, known for The big Blue, The fifth Element, Leon Or Lucyis one of the French figures caught in the wave of accusations of 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.
The actress has also filed a complaint for rape in Belgium against Mr. Besson. The Belgian Constitutional Court should rule at the end of 2023 on the admissibility of this complaint.