A Belgian press officer announced Thursday on the RTL station that she had filed a complaint against the French singer and actor Patrick Bruel, denouncing a sexual assault which allegedly occurred in 2010 in the premises of the Belgian public media, RTBF.
Karine Visseur, who had already testified in the Belgian press in recent days, had filed a first complaint in 2010, which was subsequently withdrawn, according to RTL.
She filed a complaint again on Tuesday in Belgium for these facts which date back to 2010, at the time when she was 38 years old and working on the promotion of the film “Like the five fingers of the hand”, specifies the radio.
On the legal front, Patrick Bruel, 66, is already the subject of an investigation for rape opened in France in Saint-Malo, and is the subject of another complaint, for attempted rape and sexual assault. He denies these accusations.
At the microphone of RTL, Karine Viseur recounted this day spent alongside the famous singer and actor where she “clearly” understood that she was “prey”.
She describes a first scene in a makeup room, where he would have “cornered” her and would have subjected her to “a surge of caresses”, “chest to chest”.
He then allegedly forced her to enter, then locked her, in a toilet. “He tries to forcefully kiss me. He rubs against me. He caresses me, he goes under my dress,” she described.
“I will not turn back”
“No one dared to speak” because of Patrick Bruel’s star status, explains this woman, who says she found the courage to file a complaint when others accused him in turn.
In mid-March, the French news site Mediapart reported the testimony of six women accusing him of sexual violence between 1992 and 2019.
This article “creates a character and a system that never existed”, reacted after these revelations from Mediapart Christophe Ingrain, the lawyer of the accused. Patrick Bruel claims “to have never overstepped a refusal, never forced a gesture or a sexual relationship,” he added.
Asked again on Thursday by AFP, Me Ingrain did not wish to react.
Ms. Viseur recognizes that the facts are probably prescribed: “Too much time has passed, but the complaint can nevertheless be investigated,” she explained, adding that two other people could soon file a complaint in Belgium.
“I will not turn back and if I can open the floor to other people, to other women in Belgium, I will be there to support them and support them,” she added.
