The investigation targeting the former minister Jean-Michel Baylet, accused of rape, was dismissed by the Paris prosecutor’s office due to prescription.
The boss of the Dispatch from the South is accused by Nathalie Collin, daughter of the former Tarn-et-Garonne senator Yvon Collin, of rape and sexual assault when she was between 12 and 14 years old, in the early 1980s, which he disputes.
“What is important is that the prosecution does not say that it has classified because the facts are insufficiently characterized”, underlined Friday, January 28 with Agence France-Presse (AFP) Zoé Royaux, lawyer for Nathalie Collin.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to AFP that it had closed the procedure without further action due to the acquisition of the prescription for public action. According to a source familiar with the matter, the ranking dates from January 17.
“A minimal communication consisting in saying that he is classified for prescription does not reflect the reality of an investigation having demonstrated the implausibilities of an accusation made forty-one years later, by the daughter of a political opponent, recently convicted of Bribery “, reacted to AFP Mand Thierry Carrère, adviser to Jean-Michel Baylet.
“We participated in the acts of investigation, while we had no such obligation, we found in the file the confirmation of its inconsistency as that of the will to harm, beyond all limits, of our accuser”, he added. “We welcome this classification, which was beyond doubt, with satisfaction. »
The facts denounced by Nathalie Collin would have started during a vacation in Greece with her parents in the villa of Jean-Michel Baylet, then would have continued. His memories are sometimes “lacunaires”, she readily admitted in an interview with AFP in 2021, but they are also made “accurate images of places (Paris, Font-Romeu, Toulouse), actions and smells”.
On his denunciation, the Paris prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation for “rapes” and “sexual assault” on a minor under the age of 15 on June 9, 2020.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has made a habit of systematically opening investigations into accusations of sexual violence against minors, even if the facts are apparently prescribed, in order to verify the facts and to search for possible other non-prescribed assaults.
Five hour showdown
After being heard by the police in a free hearing in February 2021, the 75-year-old former minister was confronted for five hours with his accuser in October at the premises of the minors protection brigade in Paris.
“I come out as I came in, free as the air”, had declared at the end of this confrontation Jean-Michel Baylet, who has always disputed the facts.
For Nathalie Collin, now 53, this confrontation allowed her to “say everything she needed to say to him (…) and that she retained during these years”, explained Zoé Royals.
About ten years ago, a former relation of the Baylet family had denounced acts of rape targeting Nathalie Collin in a report to the Montauban prosecutor.
Understood, she had denied. “But it was wrong, I just wasn’t ready”, she admitted. She is silent “because we are steeped in guilt, shame and the revelation is a threat to the balance of the family”. From now on, “shame has changed sides”, said Zoé Royals on Friday.