The 80-year-old filmmaker went to the Paris court on Friday at the summons of an investigating judge. He was placed under the status of assisted witness.
Black cap on his head and sunglasses hiding his face, Jacques Doillon went to the Paris court on Friday December 6. After a long interrogation led by investigating judges, the filmmaker accused of rape by several people was placed under the status of assisted witness. This legal status, reserved for persons implicated in a judicial investigation, is an intermediary between that of witness and that of the accused (awarded when there are “serious or consistent indications” against the accused).
“In certain cases, questions around the notion of consent can and must arise. But that is not the case here,” his lawyer Marie Dosé told AFP after the interrogation. . “There is no serious or consistent evidence against Jacques Doillon in this case, and the exculpatory evidence is unequivocal. We have provided correspondence, emails, which highlight the lies of the civil party,” he said. -she added.
The interrogation for which Jacques Doillon was summoned last Friday concerned the accusations made by Joe Rohanne. This non-binary trans person who had a child with the director, had filed a complaint for three rapes, injuries and psychological violence from 2009 to 2012. They had shared their testimony, a priori not prescribed, in the columns of Le Monde.
“The rush of certain journalists to expose and detail complaints in the media without verifying anything, and has been doing so for months, poses a real difficulty in a democracy,” said Jacques Doillon’s lawyer. “We should all question this excitement. Here, it is not justice that does not listen to the victims, but the media factory of a culprit who had to wait 10 months before finally being heard,” said she insisted.
Other prescribed complaints
The 80-year-old director was the subject of several complaints, including that filed by Judith Godreche last February. The 52-year-old actress had accused him of “rape of a 15-year-old minor in authority”, and had detailed an assault on a set, ensuring that the filmmaker had “groped” her during an unforeseen sex scene on the shooting of a film, in 1989, when she was 15 years old”. But these were not the subject of the summons this last Friday, since the facts described by the actress were not were also not included in the scope of charges subject to potential prosecution, due to statute of limitations.
Last April, in an interview with Le Parisien, Jacques Doillon denied the accusations, disputing “taking advantage of his position to obtain sexual favors”. He assures “never to have had an intimate relationship with Judith Godrèche”, saying to have “never been attracted to her”. He also filed a complaint against the actress for defamation after she accused him on Instagram last February of “sleeping” with “children”. The actress received a preliminary notice of indictment for defamation recently. This is an automatic measurement.
Two other women had filed complaints for statute-barred facts: one accused Jacques Doillon of rape in Paris in 1995, when she was 16, and the other accused him of attempted rape in 1998.