The rape allegations made by actress Sand Van Roy against filmmaker Luc Besson were finally dropped by the French judiciary on Wednesday after five years of tense trials.
• Also read: Rape allegations against Luc Besson: cassation on Wednesday in France
• Also read: Actress Sand Van Roy accuses Luc Besson of rape
In this iconic case of the #MeToo cinema version, the 35-year-old Belgian-Dutch actress had filed a rape complaint in May 2018, a few hours after an appointment in a Parisian palace with the director, whose protagonists made two radically different versions.
For Sand Van Roy, the influential filmmaker had forced digital penetration on him, a source of impotence despite his interim orders to stop. Two months later, the actress filed a complaint against the filmmaker over further rapes and sexual assaults, which she says were committed between 2016 and 2018 during a “relationship of professional influence” over which threats of “retaliation for her acting career hung”. .
For his part, Luc Besson regretted having had an extramarital relationship with the complainant within the framework of “subordination” when the actress had appeared in some of his films, but twice reiterated that he could not “remember” some of the facts denounced and rendered in an account imbued with “gentleness.”
The Court of Cassation seized the actress, who had challenged the director’s dismissal during the inquest, and dismissed the appeal, assuring that “there was no way that this appeal could be allowed,” a decision said of the highest French judge court consulted by AFP.
“This decision confirms the parole in favor of Luc Besson and confirms all the decisions of the last five years that found him not guilty,” responded Me Thierry Marembert, the filmmaker’s attorney.
“This brings to a definitive end this trial that began in 2018 in which Luc Besson was systematically acquitted by all the judges examining the case. As a lawyer, I applaud this exemplary process, which has made it possible to reveal the truth that Luc Besson is innocent,” the council added.
The plaintiff, Sand Van Roy, immediately responded on Twitter: “The Court of Cassation has decided not to accept my appeal, which again leads to the French courts refusing to consider the evidence contained in the file.”
“I am continuing the ongoing proceedings and will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” she added.