The Versailles Court of Appeal rules on Wednesday on the reduction of the judicial control of Patrick Bruel, accused by numerous women of sexual violence and indicted in four cases at the Nanterre court.
The singer’s lawyers had contacted an investigating judge to rule on a request to authorize the sixty-year-old to leave French territory, even though he was prohibited from doing so.
The magistrate authorized him to do so on July 21. But in the process, the Nanterre public prosecutor appealed this decision which it considered “unjustified” and “excessive”, according to revelations from Mediapart.
The hearing to examine this appeal took place on August 14, RTL reported this summer.
Asked by AFP, Fanny Colin, Céline Lasek and Christophe Ingrain, who defend the artist, did not wish to speak ahead of this decision.
The 67-year-old singer, who contests all of the facts with which he is accused, is indicted 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 in 2019 and a case of sexual harassment in Ajaccio, in Corsica, in 2019.
The singer is placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness in four other cases, including a rape in Dinard (Ile-et-Vilaine) in 2012, a rape in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse) in 2015, an attempted rape in 2010 and 2011 in Neuilly-sur-Seine and sexual harassment in 2019 in Nyon, Switzerland.
He contests all the facts with which he is accused, in particular ensuring that he never “forced a woman”.
Since his indictment last June, nine complaints of other sexual violence have been filed or announced.
The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office has confirmed to AFP at this stage the filing of two of them – one for attempted rape and sexual assault in October 2007, the other for rape and sexual assault in May 2012.
Asked about the others, announced in the media or confirmed to AFP by lawyers, this same source did not respond.
“Relief”
For his part, Patrick Bruel filed a complaint on Wednesday notably for violation of the secrecy of the investigation, denouncing in particular the publication by several media including “Paris Match” of extracts from his hearing by the investigators.
“It is firmly denied that Mr. Bruel made the remarks that were falsely attributed to him by Paris Match, in particular the sentence: + It is not 30 mourners who are going to ruin my career +”, underlined his advice in a press release sent to AFP, indignant against violations which “cause serious and irremediable damage to the sincerity and serenity of the procedure”.
In an article devoted to the “real reasons” for the cancellation of the singer’s tour, the weekly explained that the singer would have made this confidence to relatives, mid-May, two months after the publication of a Mediapart investigation, based on the testimony of eight women covering a period from 1991 to 2019.
Patrick Bruel canceled the tour on September 2 that he was supposed to start at the beginning of October. For several weeks, political leaders, elected officials and feminist associations have been calling on the singer to give up performing on stage while dozens of women are now accusing him of sexual violence. His judicial control did not prohibit him from performing on stage.
A cancellation that became “an obligation” and which was a “relief,” Karine Viseur, a former Belgian press officer who accuses Patrick Bruel of attempted rape in 2010 in Brussels, confided in an interview with AFP on Friday, for which he is under investigation.
The fifty-year-old was surprised to find this summer that the man she accuses could travel abroad, and considered it “disrespectful” not to have been informed of this.
