“This complaint completely shattered my life” explains Sand Van Roy

For the first time, actress and comedian Sand Van Roy has agreed to give a television interview as part of a documentary by Complement of Inquiry devoted to the Polanski affair. Three years after his rape complaint accusing director Luc Besson, Sand Van Roy explains to Tristan Waleckxx how the French legal system has ruined his life. If the case is still under investigation, the Paris prosecutor’s office requested a dismissal in October 2021. Faced with the words of the Belgian-Dutch actress, Luc Besson formally denies any aggression. Yet Sand Van Roy is the ninth alleged victim accusing the director of such acts.

At the start of their meeting, Luc Besson and Sand Van Roy would have maintained a professional relationship: “I went through the castings, I did the costume fittings and then he showed me the sets. We exchanged and realized that we lived two minutes away. And there, he invited me to talk about my work as a comedian and my sketches because I was going on stage at that time ”. The actress then plays in the film Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets by Luc Besson. She confides to the journalist her surprise when, on the set, the director becomes “authoritarian”. She is unsettled, because during their exchanges, she found him rather “soft and calm”.

Luc Besson case: the difficulty for Sand Van Roy to push back his employer

In the book Lack of evidence by Marine Turchi, published on November 10, 2021, Sand Van Roy testifies to the beginning of this professional relationship of two and a half years that she will define, subsequently, as a relationship under “hold”. Luc Besson would have first started by being tactile with her. This does not surprise him, because he would have been like that with other actresses on the set. “He started by ‘liking’ my photos on Instagram”, she explains to the author. The two then forge a relationship of trust that leaves room for confidences. Then, one evening, the director went to Sand Van Roy’s home to give him “a love declaration”.

“He kisses me, I don’t push him away, but immediately he slips a hand under my skirt and penetrates me with his finger”, she confides. There, she pushes him away, because she doesn’t want more. The next day, on the set, she explains that it would have been “cold” and “authoritarian”. For Complement of Inquiry, she returns to this episode and to the difficulty of pushing back her employer. “If we push him away too violently, we know it will have consequences. If we go to a party and someone is insistent, it’s easier to slap him. But when it does. is your boss and you are in a situation of dependency, it is more difficult “, she explains. He’s 62, she’s 28. And it doesn’t stop there.

“What happened has nothing to do with classic, consensual sex”

On the night of May 17 to 18, 2018, Sand Van Roy went to the suite occupied by Luc Besson at the Hotel Bristol. “You have to understand that Luc Besson does not have an apartment or a house in Paris. He lives in a hotel and receives professional meetings all the time”, she insists with Tristan Waleckxx. In fact, this point is important since the media quickly implied that she had gone, of her own free will, to the director’s room. Subsequently, Sand Van Roy’s memories of her rape are blurry. But she claims that “what happened has nothing to do with classic, consensual intercourse.” What Henriette Van Der Pas, her mother, confirms with Marine Turchi.

On the evening of the rape, Sand Van Roy allegedly called his mother. She finds her daughter in shock: “It was a tsunami: she was screaming, she was shaking, she was crying, she was sweating, it was awful”. Indeed, the young woman is found with bruises in the eyes and traces of violence in the back. “He didn’t hit me directly in the face, she explains for Additional Inquiry, but I felt an impact in the back “. The young woman goes on to say that, during her audition, Luc Besson would have said that he did not want a sexual relationship with her, but that he would have forced himself and would still have given her several orgasms. “Meanwhile, she recalls, he did not explain the injuries that were observed the evening of the rape, nor the traces of blood that we found afterwards “.

The Luc Besson case: an example of a legal process that crushes the alleged victims

The legal process in which the actress engages will then make matters worse. “There is nothing that has not been done in the normal way, she tells Tristan Tristan Waleckxx, the day after my complaint, there is a report that says he must be taken into custody. It will not be heard until four and a half months later in a free hearing. His DNA will not be collected for almost two years ”. The actress is amazed: “How can we not take DNA from a person in a rape case where the materiality of the facts is in dispute?” The elements that she then wanted to provide to the investigation – and which proved the state of depression and post-traumatic stress in which this rape had put her – were refused by the examining magistrate on the grounds of preservation of medical confidentiality.

In this interview that Sand van Roy gave to the show Additional Inquiry, we realize the ordeal that alleged victims of rape can feel when they try to go to justice. If it had to be done again, the actress says she would not file a complaint in France, because, according to her, “This country does not protect the victims of famous people”. She goes on to insist that she “Don’t let go” and that she is going “To confront people who have done legal stupid things”. This courageous testimony points to the overwhelming figures about the legal management of rape cases. In her book, Marine Turchi highlights, in particular, a survey carried out by the Women’s Foundation in 2018. Out of 1169 victims surveyed, 74% of them declared that they had “no” or “little” confidence in the justice system. 82% said the same about the police. In addition to these figures, the author recalls that in France, only 10% of rapes are the subject of a complaint. However, among them, 10 to 15% will lead to a criminal conviction of the author.

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