The Versailles Court of Appeal has decided to extend the prosecution of the judicial investigation to facts appearing to be prescribed, after the accusations of Florence Porcel against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor.
Rare decision rendered in the investigation in Nanterre targeting Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, accused of rape by the writer Florence Porcel: the Versailles Court of Appeal has decided to extend the prosecution of the judicial investigation to facts appearing to be prescribed .
According to a source close to the case at AFP, the investigative chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal on Tuesday extended the scope of the judicial investigation targeting Patrick Poivre d’Arvor to facts dating from 2004 for which Florence Porcel accuses the former star presenter of rape.
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Florence Porcel, 38, accuses the former journalist of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009, which he disputes. The facts of 2004, closed without further action for prescription during a preliminary investigation in 2021, were not included until now in the judicial information currently being carried out by an examining magistrate in Nanterre.
By reversing the order of this judge on Tuesday, the court of appeal “allows the instruction to continue on all the facts” and to decide, in a second time, on their prescription or not, underlined Wednesday the source close to the file.
The defense of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor “waits to have more precise elements before reacting and commenting, if necessary, on a court decision which would be freed from the rules of limitation”, declared to AFP Jacqueline Laffont, who confirms that his client has not been heard, to date, by the investigating judge.
Ms. Porcel’s lawyers did not respond to requests from AFP.
The PPDA investigation began in February 2021 when the writer Florence Porcel filed a complaint for rape.
PPDA subject to another investigation
A preliminary investigation was then conducted for four months by the Nanterre prosecutor’s office, during which 23 women testified. The majority of the facts denounced being prescribed, the investigation had been closed without further action in June.
Other testimonies against the former journalist had appeared in the press. Patrick Poivre d’Arvor has contested all the charges against him and filed several complaints for slanderous denunciation.
After a first filing without follow-up of such a complaint, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor recently filed a complaint against 16 of his accusers, this time with a civil action to cause referral to an investigating judge. This judge has not yet been appointed, the complaint being at the stage of registration.
For PPDA, these 16 complainants are “very bitter rejected or ignored lovers” who act “for revenge” by “howling at wolves”, according to her complaint consulted by AFP.
For the facts denounced by Ms. Porcel, the closing without further action by the Nanterre prosecution was motivated by the “prescription” of the facts of 2004, but also by the “insufficiency of evidence” for those of 2009. At the end of November, Ms. Porcel s was made a civil party in order to cause the referral to a judge to investigate again.
This judicial investigation had been opened in December for the facts of 2009 only, which was contested by the defense of Ms. Porcel before the investigating chamber denouncing a “refusal to inform”. The judicial information must now relate “to all the facts”, including those of 2004, according to the close source.
Patrick Poivre d’Arvor is also the subject of another ongoing investigation, this one led by magistrates from the Nanterre prosecutor’s office, following three complaints of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. The complainants denounce facts at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985, in his office at TF1 in 1995 or even in a Club Med in Savoie in 2013. These facts also appear to be prescribed.
At least 27 women testified against PPDA in the press or in court, including two minors at the time of the alleged events.