During her undercover work to uncover sex crimes in the fashion business for a BBC series, a British journalist alleges she was sexually raped by Gérald Marie. She is now calling for models who have accused the French fashion entrepreneur of rape to have their accusations heard in court.
Eight of the 72-year-old tycoon’s alleged victims and Lisa Brinkworth, who claims Marie assaulted her in 1998 when they were both working on a documentary with journalist Donal MacIntyre, will make their case this month for France to extend the 20-year statute of limitations to MEPs.
The ladies, who go by the name Victorious Angels, argue that the French statute of limitations “continues to shield our abuser” and that it is “thwarting” their efforts to get justice.
The time restriction for reporting sexual assault in France at the time was three years, while the time limit for reporting rape was ten years.
Although the alleged offense occurred more than 20 years ago, the lawsuit in France has not been closed because French attorneys claimed that Marie was stopped from coming out sooner by a BBC settlement with Marie’s Elite model agency over the program.
Miss Brinkworth, 55, said that even though her lawsuit is still pending, she would not go through with it until all of the other victims get the opportunity to testify.
The allegations against Marie, the former spouse of supermodel Linda Evangelista, have been vehemently refuted.
We have all endured violence at the hands of these former model agents, said Miss Brinkworth.
The victims of Gérald Marie find themselves hindered by the French statute of limitations, which continues to defend our abuser, when we finally found our voices to speak out against their actions and share our tales about what happened to us decades ago.
“Now we are committing our long-term goal to assist make Europe a safer place and ensuring that future victims of sexual assault have access to legal remedies that are being denied to us.”
Omar Harfouch, a Lebanese businessman, politician, and former Elite shareholder who has given the police a witness statement against Marie, is organizing the discussion at the European Parliament.
We will be requesting a public discussion on the statute of limitations, he continued.
To help future generations of victims receive justice, “We will encourage all member nations to harmonise rules that we are proposing.”
After dinner with friends and Marie, Miss Brinkworth claims she was raped when he forced her to a chair in a nightclub. The attack was seen by her colleague Donal McIntyre and others, but she chose not to disclose it at the time since doing so would have jeopardized her investigation, she said.
On September 20, 2020, Miss Brinkworth eventually filed a complaint with the French legal authorities in which she detailed the “obscene environment” that Marie allegedly created by asking her to perform a sex act on an Elite executive and to “let me f**k you” for money. (500 euros are cited in the court documents, despite the fact that France did not adopt the euro until 2002.)
According to the court documents, Miss Brinkworth was told: “No one resists the president of Elite and it’s an honor to sleep with this guy.”
According to paperwork presented to a Parisian court in June, the BBC opposed Miss Brinkworth’s legal case.
After Elite filed a lawsuit against the BBC after it aired the accusations in the documentary it produced in 1999, the Corporation agreed, as part of a confidentially agreement, in 2001 not to air the program ever again. Legal records claim that since Miss Brinkworth was not a party to that arrangement, Elite exerted pressure on her to keep quiet.
Marie was the subject of a preliminary inquiry by Paris prosecutors in September 2020 after 15 women accused him of rape and sexual abuse. All of the alleged offenses, however, are time-barred for prosecution since they all allegedly occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Marie is still free and no charges have been filed.
Between 1999 and 2001, according to Miss Brinkworth, the BBC provided her with security for three years and placed her in three safe homes, at least one of which was encircled by electric fences.
The deal, she said, “kind of stalled development” and that she felt “obligation” for other women who have accused Marie of sexual assault.
According to French law, all of the claims have now passed their statute of limitations, but Miss Brinworth’s attorney Anne-Claire Lejeune is claiming that the statute should be suspended since she was barred from pursuing justice at the time.
Miss Brinkworth first met Mr. Harfouch during a gathering of the plaintiffs held in the Paris Senate in September 2021. Mr. Harfoch alleged that after supporting former Elite models who claimed they had been sexually assaulted, he himself started to become a “target for death threats.”
The effort to overturn the statute of limitations, according to Marie’s attorney Céline Bekerman, had little prospect of success since it was “based on fantastical reasoning.”
Miss Bekerman said that since Miss Brinkworth “was never a party to the agreement signed between Elite and the BBC,” nothing ever prevented her from reporting sexual assault in the late 1990s and early 2000s.