The lawsuit by actress Hélène Darras, who accused actor Gérard Depardieu (New Window) of sexually abusing her during filming in 2007, was dropped at the end of December due to the statute of limitations, the Paris public prosecutor's office said on Monday.
The classification as prescription only comes as no surprise to me. “If I made a complaint, it was because I could no longer remain silent,” Hélène Darras replied to AFP.
From now on, if my testimony allows the judiciary to pursue outstanding complaints, allow other victims to express themselves freely, or even reopen the debate about the statute of limitations, all of this will not have been in vain.
The French cinema giant's legal department did not respond to queries from AFP.
The complaint is dated September 10th. The actress, who had already testified in court and in the Mediapart investigation, wanted to address the defense, which she downplays [les] She told AFP at the beginning of December that denunciations were made on the grounds that they were only witness statements.
She referred to the allegations against Gérard Depardieu, which have been published several times in the press and who denies them.
She also said it took me a year to go from making statements to complaining. Walking through the door of the police station and telling a police officer that one's private parts have been touched is not easy, it takes time to think about it, she added.
It was the investigative magazine Complément d'investigation, broadcast on France 2, that revealed Ms Darras' complaint. There she tells her story. During filming, Gérard Depardieu would have shaken his hand [ses] hips, up [ses] buttocks before asking him: Do you want to come to my dressing room? The actress then replied in the negative, but asserted that nothing had changed: he would continue to grope me between takes.
The Charlotte Arnould file is still open
In a separate case, Gérard Depardieu was charged with rape and sexual assault in Paris on December 16, 2020, following the lawsuit of another actress, Charlotte Arnould, who denounced two rapes that the actor allegedly suffered at his Paris home in late August 2018 .
Ms. Arnould's lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, recently wrote to the Paris prosecutor's office asking them to analyze the Complément d'investigation report, prosecutors said. She believes Mr. Depardieu's on-camera comments likely have a criminal classification, which prosecutors are currently analyzing.
In the viewfinder: a video recorded in 2018 during a trip to North Korea with the writer Yann Moix, in which we hear Gérard Depardieu mimicking sexual intercourse with gestures and throat sounds and making shocking remarks to women.