A new complaint for attempted rape filed against Patrick Bruel

A new complaint has been filed against Patrick Bruel for "attempted rape", announced Wednesday August 19 on France Inter, Myriam Guedj-Benayoun, lawyer for several complainants in this case.

The complaint for “attempted rape” was filed “this summer”, specifies the lawyer. It was filed by a woman who “was extremely young, barely an adult” at the time of the alleged facts. “We find the same operating mode again: we are in the world of entertainment, she is approached, invited to a party and finally at this party, she will be alone with Patrick Bruel and that is where she will say that she is the victim of attempted rape,” describes the lawyer.

Facts “concerned by the prescription”, she specifies. However, this limitation can be lifted in the event of serial crimes and the connection of the facts, she recalls.

Myriam Guedj-Benayoun adds that she will transmit to the investigating judges in September "several testimonies from victims who do not wish to file a complaint, but who wish to bring to justice their testimony on the facts they say they have suffered, mainly attempted rape there too".

The artist, aged 67, has been indicted since mid-June in four cases: a rape in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) in 2008, an attempted rape in 2010 in Brussels, a case of sexual assault and sexual harassment in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales) in 2019 and a case of sexual harassment in Ajaccio (South Corsica) in 2019.

Patrick Bruel is placed under the status of assisted witness in four other cases. The singer denies all the charges against him.

Myriam Guedj-Benayoun counts “31 complaints” filed against Patrick Bruel with the public prosecutor of Nanterre. She is therefore surprised that the singer obtained in July a reduction in his judicial control relating to the ban on leaving the national territory. “I cannot say that I suspect preferential treatment, that would be unethical on my part. On the other hand, what I can say is that I almost never see, if ever” such a decision in this type of case, observes the lawyer.

“We ask ourselves questions and my clients are starting to find that this is a bad signal from justice.”

The Nanterre public prosecutor's office appealed this order easing the singer's judicial control. “The hearing took place in mid-August and we will have the deliberations on September 16,” indicates Maître Guedj-Benayoun. On the question of the limitation period and the treatment of sexual crimes, “our country is extremely late”, regrets the lawyer.