The Supreme Court has denied Jasmine Roy the right to anonymity in the file which pits him against a man who put him on the online Say His Name list. “Disappointed” with the decision, the actor and presenter said in an interview that he had been the victim of a campaign of harassment for “three years” by a person he did not “know”.
This is the first time Jasmin Roy has spoken on the case, having tried to maintain anonymity in 2021 before the Supreme Court, 2022 before the Court of Appeal and finally before the Supreme Court in a defamation lawsuit. They all turned them down, but a publication ban remained in effect throughout the process, which concluded today.
“I wanted to remain anonymous because I wanted peace of mind about what I had to do. It calms me because it becomes a media circus,” explains Jasmin Roy on the phone. “It’s very painful for me.”
The starting point of this “circus” is the allegations by a man named Jean-François Robillard, who accused Mr Roy of sexual abuse on Facebook. Shortly thereafter, her name appeared on Dis son nom’s nomination list, after which they were announced by Jasmin Roy and her foundation Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais. His name disappeared, then reappeared before being deleted again in 2021.
Now that his identity has come to light, it is Jasmin Roy who is accusing Mr. Robillard of “harassment” and “threatening” against him and an employee of his foundation.
“He knew where I lived, he knew where my employee lived. That’s why I sold my condo,” he says.
“I have proof. I have videos of him repeatedly trying to enter my building. I have a letter from him pretending to be a journalist from Le Devoir. I have all that.”
Mr Robillard lodged a complaint with the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). She was rejected.
Mr Roy also says he lodged a complaint with the SPVM in 2011.
“When the investigator called me, she said to me, ‘He’s someone we already know, this Mr. Robillard, it’s not the first time, we need to see the eye,'” he said.
Jasmin Roy argues that this “evidence” would have been submitted during the appeal phase, but would not have been taken into account in the judges’ decision.
In the Court of Appeals decision of August 31, 2022, Judge Sophie Lavallée denied Jasmine Roy anonymity because “the information [Jasmin Roy] “The people we want to protect are not very sensitive.”
“His private life may well be disturbed, but he has not shown that in this case the relevant interest in privacy would be seriously jeopardized in terms of the dignity of the person,” she says.
Jasmin Roy, who has been identified in the media as a “public figure” in connection with this affair, says she fears the impact of the outbreak of this affair on his foundation’s activities.
For their part, Jean-François Robillard’s lawyers and Say his name’s administrators said they were “satisfied”.
“It closes a long-standing debate about whether people accused of sexual assault have the right to anonymity,” one of the defense attorneys on the case, Justin Wee, said over the phone.
Jasmine Roy would like to “let the storm pass” for the time being before weighing the options available to him with his lawyers.
“Of course I’m scared, but I have nothing to blame myself for, so I’ll fight,” said Jasmin Roy.