A day earlier, the French justice finally dismissed charges of multiple rapes brought by the Dutch-Belgian actress Sande Van Rooy against director Luc Besson. The Court of Cassation decided to dismiss the five-year trial.
In 2018, the 35-year-old actress claimed she had been raped several times over two years by director Luc Besson. Prosecutors dismissed the case in early 2019, citing insufficient evidence, but after Van Rooy made a new statement that year, the investigation resumed.
Sand Van Rooy accused Besson of raping her hours after they met at a hotel. Two months later, the actress filed a complaint against the director for multiple rapes and sexual harassment that she claimed took place between 2016 and 2018, when Luc Besson threatened to “retaliate against her career as an actress.”
During the trial, the filmmaker expressed regret that he had an extramarital affair with the complainant during a “hierarchical relationship,” as the actress had starred in several Luc Besson films during that period. On two occasions, the filmmaker claimed in court that he “remembered nothing” about the charges against him, remembering a sexual relationship, full of tenderness, with the actress.
Sand Van Rooy appealed to the Court of Cassation after the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed the charge of multiple rape in May 2022. According to the AFP news agency, France’s most important legal institution said in its acquittal, “there is no element of such a nature that would allow the charge to stand.”
“This decision confirms the dismissal of the case in favor of Luc Besson and confirms all the decisions over the last five years concerning him that said he was innocent,” said the director’s lawyer Thierry Marembert.
“This is the final conclusion of the 2018 trial in which Luc Besson was systematically found not guilty by all the judges who investigated the case,” he added.
Petitioner Sand Van Rooy immediately responded on social media. “The Court of Cassation has decided not to accept my appeal, which means that the French justice has again refused to consider the evidence in the case. I will continue the proceedings and appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” she wrote.
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