The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office also confirmed this Monday at Figaro the existence of a first complaint for rape filed in 2005 against the former presenter of the TF1 news.
Two new women have filed a civil complaint against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, after their complaints were initially dismissed for prescription, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office said on Monday, requested by AFP.
Five other women had also filed a complaint last June, leading to the seizure of two investigating judges on July 19, and who have since been joined to the judicial investigation opened in December 2021 after the complaint with the constitution of civil party of the author Florence Porcel, who accuses the former presenter of having raped her twice. PPDA was indicted in December 2023 for one of these rapes. “During the previous constitutions of civil parties, the judges seized of Florence Porcel’s complaint were designated and they ordered the joinder with their initial case”said the prosecution.
This judicial information was extended in February to two other rapes and a sexual assault denounced by three women. In total, more than 40 women testified in court against the former news presenter of Antenne 2 then TF1, aged 77, who contests the accusations of rape and sexual assault.
A complaint already filed in 2005
One of them denounced him 19 years ago, Caroline Merlet filed a complaint for rape against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor in June 2005. Contacted by Le Figarothe Nanterre public prosecutor’s office affirmed “that a complaint for rape had indeed been filed in May 2005 within the jurisdiction of the Rochefort court, and dismissed in October 2005 by the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, for lack of evidence after hearing the defendant who contested the facts, the DNA analysis being negative”, confirming information from Monde.
The prosecution nevertheless claims to have “identified the file and studied it as part of its checks carried out to look for a possible connection with the other procedures before the public prosecutor’s office. This connection made it possible to interrupt the limitation periods, and the period then started again from zero from the last investigative acts of October 2005. In view of the limitation periods provided for by law at the time, the tort acts were are therefore prescribed in October 2008 and the criminal acts in October 2015, i.e. before the entry into force of the 2017 law which extended these deadlines without retroactivity, that is to say without being able to return to the deadlines that have completely expired. They are therefore prescribed today. As part of this investigation, the host was therefore interviewed by investigators from the Hauts-de-Seine judicial police, and police officers went to his office in the TF1 tower, located in Boulogne-Billancourt at the west of Paris, to make observations.
TF1 accused of “protecting” PPDA
Caroline Merlet was 29 years old at the time, and the facts she denounces occurred on March 14, 2005 in the presenter’s office, after the television news she had attended, details The World. On June 16, 2005, she went to the Rochefort police station (Charente-Maritime) to file a complaint for rape against the host, a complaint which was never made public, adds the daily. But the abolition of the court of this city “during the reform of the judicial map in 2007, research became more complex”explained the Nanterre prosecutor’s office. The public prosecutor, however, “identified the file and studied it as part of its checks carried out to look for a possible connection with procedures before the public prosecutor’s office”. Contacted by AFP, PPDA lawyer, Me Jacqueline Laffont, could not immediately be reached.
As for the management of the channel, it explained to AFP that it had not been aware of this procedure in 2005, affirming that the management “has been renewed several times since the material time” et “is aware of these events through their media coverage”. “It’s unimaginable”contests journalist Hélène Devynck, joined by AFP, who filed a complaint with civil action last June against PPDA. “It’s impossible to go back” in the premises of TF1 and “to search an office without management being aware”she stressed, accusing TF1 of “protect” his former star and to have “concealed” this complaint. She and the other plaintiffs are “in black anger”she adds: “If I had known in 2005, maybe I would have testified” that year, “perhaps many of the 46 women who testified today would have done so too” 19 years ago.
