The Paris prosecutor’s office opens a judicial investigation and requests the indictment of the director

The filmmaker, accused of sexual violence by three actresses, was taken into custody on Monday, as was Jacques Doillon, who is the subject of the same investigation for other similar acts. The latter was released for medical reasons.

He spent 48 hours in police custody. Director Benoît Jacquot, 77, accused by three actresses, including Judith Godrèche, of sexual violence, was brought before an investigating judge on Wednesday, July 3. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened a judicial investigation and requested that he be charged and placed under judicial supervision. The judicial investigation concerns facts of “rape, sexual assault and violence, likely to have been committed between 2013 and 2018 to the detriment” of the actress Julia Roy, 34 years old today, and of “rape of a minor by a person in authority, rape by a partner, likely to have been committed between 1998 and 2000, and in 2007” to the detriment of Isild Le Besco, 41 years old.

Filmmaker Jacques Doillon, 80, was also taken into custody on Monday as part of the same investigation opened in February by the Paris prosecutor’s office. in particular for rape of a minor under 15 by a person in authority, after Judith Godrèche’s complaint52, against the two directors. His police custody was lifted on Tuesday evening “for medical reasons”the prosecution said, specifying that it “has been sent the procedure today to assess the scope and the modalities of the follow-up to be given”In both proceedings, the complainants who reported facts which do not appear in the period of prevention retained – 2013-2018 for Julia Roy and 1998-2000 and 2007 for Isild Le Besco – “will be contacted personally”, adds the same source.

The facts denounced by Judith Godrèche, who claims to have experienced a relationship of“grip” and of “perversion” with Benoît Jacquot from 1986 to 1992, are not included in the judicial investigation due, in particular, to the statute of limitations, franceinfo learned from a source close to the case. An investigation had nevertheless been opened to identify other potential victims who had not been statute-barred. Julia Roy and Isild Le Besco described, in the press and in a book for the latter, the behavior of a director who took advantage of his aura and position to exert influence over them. They filed a complaint after Judith Godrèche in this case.

Benoît Jacquot disputes the facts of which he is accused. After his placement in police custody, his lawyer Julia Minkowski reacted by affirming that the filmmaker would “finally being able to express oneself before the courts”denouncing a “ultra-mediatization” and deploring “dysfunctions of justice”.

Jacques Doillon also claims his innocence and has filed a complaint against Judith Godrèche for defamation. The actress and director accuses the director, ex-husband of Jane Birkin and father of actress Lou Doillon, of having “abused” of her when she was 15, in her “desk” and on the set of the film The Fifteen Year Old Girl. Jacques Doillon “should have been heard in the context of a free hearing in view of the age of the facts, their statute of limitations acquired for more than two decades, and the inevitable dismissal without further action which will close this investigation”, commented his lawyer, Marie Dosé, when his client was taken into custody.