A dozen hours of hearing to “wash his dirty laundry with the family”. This is the effect given, on Wednesday, by this appeal trial of Coline Berry, eldest daughter of actor Richard Berry, who accuses him of having imposed on her, as a child, sexual games in the presence of her companion of the time, Jeane Manson.
It was the American singer who filed a defamation suit, aiming the article in Le Monde in which she testified last year
, and an interview given to BFMtv. At first instance, last April, the court of Aurillac sentenced Coline Berry to a fine of 20,000 euros.
In the discretion of this room of the Court of Appeal of Riom, we are therefore witnessing the great family unpacking. Starting with Jeane Manson, who with her American accent, denounces the “Machiavellian thesis“by Coline Berry. She and Richard Berry were walking around the apartment naked?”total lie“, she says. And this famous sexual games of the orchestra? “He never existed“says the singer who is asking for 250,000 euros in damages. At the helm, her agent ensures that no one has called for concerts since the case.
The united Berry clan
Her daughter Shirel also supports her. She remembers the violent arguments of the couple Berry-Manson but hammers “I never witnessed the facts described by Coline.”
The family parade continues. A total of seven witnesses, including Richard Berry who again traveled to Auvergne and spoke of “despicable accusations“and nothing is spared us from jealousies, conflicting divorces, to film anecdotes. Marie Berry, Richard’s sister drives the point home:”When Coline was little, we called her Coco la mytho“.
The Berry clan is united and the credibility of Coline Berry clearly suffers from her absence from this appeal trial. Absence justified by a medical certificate and by her lawyer who refuses to see her again confronted with this father whom she accuses and his partner who slapped her during the trial in Aurillac. A slap that still hangs over the debates.
A “gag trial”
Only the ex-husband of Coline Berry, Romain Rojtman, will come to support her. Assuring that she spoke to him about incest as soon as they met in 2007 and that his version has never changed.
Jeane Manson’s Aurillac lawyer, Maître Verdier, is surprised by this sole support, speaking of Coline as hysterical. Facing him, Master Klugman describes the accusation as a “conjuration” to silence the daughter of Richard Berry and compares this defamation procedure to a gag order to criminalize the speech of the victims and prevent them from speaking.
Judgment has been reserved for December 8.
Since the first trial, Coline Berry’s complaint against her father has been dismissed due to prescription. the content of the investigation was revealed by the newspaper Le Parisien
.