From former star presenter Patrick Poivre d’Arvor to political scientist Olivier Duhamel, the issue of limitation is at the heart of many sexual violence cases – they both benefited from it by obtaining a dismissal. The case of the prestigious Elite modeling agency and its former European director, Gérald Marie, is similar: Mr. Marie is under investigation, opened in September 2021, for a series of accusations of rape and sexual assaults. Fifteen women claiming to be victims of the actions of the former pope of European modeling have come forward to justice.
But the facts they describe are now prescribed. In France, the law provides for a period of six years for a sexual assault and twenty years for a rape. Beyond that, it is not possible to prosecute the attacker, even if the facts are proven. It is in an attempt to change this state of affairs that the lawyers for these victims, Mr.are William Bourdon and Anne-Claire Lejeune, wrote Tuesday, April 5 to the prosecution. In their memoir, they attempt to invoke the notion of“insurmountable obstacle” about the British journalist Lisa Brinkworth, who was the first to testify against the actions of Gérald Marie.
The boss of Elite Europe, a major figure in the fashion world of the 1980s and 1990s, allegedly regularly abused the young models he employed. In September 2021, the former model Carré Otis, one of the victims, told the World to have been regularly raped by Mr. Marie in his Parisian apartment, where he lodged the young woman, barely of age. He also allegedly, according to his account, took her to private parties where she was strongly encouraged to sleep with wealthy friends of Mr. Marie.
“Follow-up and monitored for two years”
Gérald Marie’s behavior with women was denounced in the late 1990s, in a report by the British BBC. Journalist Lisa Brinkworth had infiltrated Elite, posing as a model. While she was in the company of Gérald Marie in a club in Milan (Italy) in October 1998, she recounts having been sexually assaulted by him. According to his account, he would have “riding while[elle] prop[t] seated ” before “begin to [lui] push his penis into the lower abdomen ».
Traumatized, M.me Brinkworth will also undergo an injunction to silence: his employer, the BBC, asks him not to report the facts and not to file a complaint, so as not to compromise the current report. “The BBC has done everything to conceal the facts”, tell the World Lisa Brinkworth, “I was forbidden to speak about the investigation for two decades”. A video, which she records just after her attack, to relate the facts, is immediately confiscated from her. According to her, the BBC never wanted to provide her with the documents. Contacted, the British channel claims to take “these matters very seriously” and put “everything to help him pursue his complaint with the French authorities”. She assures that her lawyers have “provided documents to French investigators and Lisa” and had “discussions with Lisa and her attorneys about how we can help more.”
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