the Court of Cassation definitively dismisses the accusations of actress Sand Van Roy

The Court of Cassation definitively dismissed on Wednesday June 21 the accusations of rape by actress Sand Van Roy against Luc Besson, rejecting the appeal lodged by the latter against the dismissal for the benefit of the filmmaker, according to a decision whose Agence France-Presse has been informed.

The highest judicial court in fact considered that there was no “no means of such a nature as to allow the admission of the appeal” and therefore pronounced his non-admission.

“This decision confirms the dismissal in favor of Luc Besson and confirms all the decisions of the last five years which have found him not guilty”with a dismissal in December 2021, confirmed by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2022, reacted M^e Thierry Marembert, the filmmaker’s lawyer.

“It therefore puts a definitive end to this procedure initiated in 2018, during which Luc Besson was systematically cleared by all the magistrates who examined the case. As a lawyer, I welcome this exemplary procedure, which has allowed the manifestation of the truth which is that Luc Besson is innocent”added the lawyer, who had received support for the cassation procedure from M^e Patrice Spinosi.

The complainant, 35-year-old Belgian-Dutch actress Sand Van Roy, immediately reacted on Twitter : “the Court of Cassation has decided not to accept my appeal, which once again results in the French courts refusing to examine the evidence in the file”. “I am continuing the proceedings in progress and I will seize the European Court of Human Rights”she added.

During a hearing on May 24 on the appeal, the public rapporteur had proposed the non-admissibility of the appeal, considering that the defense called into question “sovereign appreciation” of the Court of Appeal, that his arguments were not serious and that the highest French judicial court did not have the right to rule on the need for an additional investigation.

The Advocate General had also advocated non-admission, using an argument comparable to that of the rapporteur.

In this emblematic case of the #MeToo movement in the world of cinema, the Belgian-Dutch actress had filed a complaint for rape on May 18, 2018, a few hours after an appointment in a Parisian palace whose protagonists gave two different versions. .

For Sand Van Roy, the influential filmmaker had imposed on him digital penetration, a source of fainting, despite his injunctions to stop. A version according to her accredited by findings, the day of the facts, by the medico-judicial emergencies. Two months later, the actress filed a complaint against the filmmaker for other rapes and sexual assaults committed, according to her, between 2016 and 2018, episodes of a “professional relationship” under threat of “retaliation on her acting career”.

Luc Besson regretted an extramarital relationship in a context of “subordination”, while the actress had shot in some of her films. But he said twice that he didn’t have “not the memory” part of the facts denounced and recounted a consented report imbued with ” candy “.