The filmmaker Jacques Doillon, targeted by accusations of rape, was placed Friday evening under the status of witness assisted at the end of his interrogation by judges, indicated the Paris prosecutor’s office, requested by AFP.
Jacques Doillon, 80 years old, had been summoned for possible indictment and was finally placed under this more favorable status of assisted witness. “We have brought correspondence, emails, which highlight the lies of the civil party,” declared his lawyer, Me Marie Dosé.
The director went to the Paris court this Friday with his face covered by a black cap and sunglasses, accompanied by his lawyer. He was placed in police custody at the Minor Protection Brigade at the beginning of July, at the same time as another filmmaker implicated by Judith Godrèche, Benoît Jacquot.
Multiple accusations
If the latter was indicted for rape of actresses Julia Roy in 2013 and Isild le Besco between 1998 and 2000, Jacques Doillon had seen his police custody lifted “for medical reasons”. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it was still considering “the modalities of the follow-up to be taken” concerning him.
In front of the police, Jacques Doillon was notably confronted by Joe Rohanne, a non-binary trans person, who filed a complaint for three rapes, assault and psychological violence. The facts that she told Le Monde, a priori not prescribed, date from 2009 to 2012 and would have occurred in France and Belgium. Two women had also filed a complaint for facts which seemed prescribed.
Hélène M. had accused the filmmaker of rape in Paris in 1995, when she was 16, while Aurélie Le Roc’h had accused him of attempted rape in the summer of 1998 at the home of Jacques Doillon, in Paris region. The preliminary investigation was triggered after the complaint filed by Judith Godrèche against the two filmmakers.
But the facts described by the actress did not appear within the scope of the accusations liable to potential prosecution, due to statute of limitations. She accuses Jacques Doillon of having “put his fingers in her pants” during tests for a film released in 1989. She was then 15 years old and was with Benoît Jacquot.
Jacques Doillon filed a defamation complaint against Judith Godrèche, not for these accusations in general but for an Instagram post from February 21 in which she accused him of “sleeping” with “children”. Judith Godrèche recently announced that she had received prior notice of indictment for defamation, a procedurally automatic measure.