After 48 hours in custody, the Nanterre prosecutor on Wednesday sought formal charges and pre-trial detention for the 67-year-old artist, accused of multiple sexual assaults he vehemently denies.
Judicial pressure is mounting on French star Patrick Bruel over sexual assault allegations. The singer and actor appeared on Wednesday before a panel of three investigating judges after spending 48 hours in police custody at the offices of the Paris criminal investigation department, where he was questioned by detectives.
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These magistrates are now responsible for examining the evidence in the case and ruling on the requests put forward by the public prosecutor’s office.
The prosecution has specifically requested that he be placed under formal investigation and remanded in custody.
The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office is seeking the opening of a judicial investigation on serious counts: rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. The current submissions are based on statements from nine alleged victims, concerning acts said to have taken place between 2010 and 2019 in France, Switzerland and Belgium. For his part, the French star continues to flatly deny all the allegations.
A case driven by a very large number of complaints
Beyond the nine victims, the case file contains a second, particularly weighty, strand. Investigators have drawn up separate proceedings concerning 13 other women. They allege extremely serious behaviour, ranging from sexual harassment and sexual assault through to acts of rape and attempted rape.
These accounts relate to incidents said to have occurred over a far longer period, between 1992 and 2008.
Although, according to the initial assessment by the prosecution, these accusations now run up against the legal time limits and appear to be statute-barred, they remain a key element in this case.
The three investigating judges assigned to the case will therefore face the onerous task of carrying out in-depth checks to determine whether the statute of limitations has indeed expired, or whether previous procedural steps may have interrupted the clock.
Even though not all the alleged victims have formally filed a complaint, for a variety of reasons ranging from fear and the trauma suffered to the fact that the events sometimes date back many years, the accumulation of testimonies and accounts with striking similarities is helping to build up the case file. These are all elements the investigating judges will now have to examine carefully in order to establish any potential liability in this affair.
