On February 14, 2021, in an article published by Le Monde, Coline Berry-Rojtman spoke of the sexual violence she allegedly suffered when she was a minor, in 1984 and 1985, at the home of her father who was then living with Jeane Manson, accused of having participated in these attacks.
Born in 1976 from the union between Richard Berry and actress Catherine Hiegel, she had filed a complaint for “rape and sexual assault on a minor”, triggering the opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Richard Berry, 71, denies outright, as does former singer Jeane Manson who lives part of the year in Aurillac, where she sued her ex-stepdaughter for defamation.
“It’s all fake. Unfortunately, it’s lies and she, I think, ended up believing it. It’s heartbreaking for a father. I have no attraction for children. I am deeply, frankly, desperate,” said the actor on the stand.
“I did not want to file a complaint because she is my daughter. I wanted to testify to support Jeane Manson”, he explained, referring to a “particular situation”: “we still have not been heard” as part of the preliminary investigation opened with the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The prosecutor did not ask for a conviction against Le Monde, considering that the newspaper had acted in good faith and left the rest to the court.
At the start of the morning, the defense lawyers had pleaded the impossibility of judging defamation, while the facts denounced by Coline Berry-Rojtman are the subject of an investigation. But the court did not follow them.
Called to the bar, the daughter of Richard Berry repeated her statements to World about the sexual games that her father would have led, sometimes in the presence of Jeane Manson. She also mentioned “kisses on the mouth with the tongue”: “I only knew that”, she said.
“She is lying (…). Since she was ten years old, everyone has called her the mytho”, replied Jeane Manson in turn, describing the article in Le Monde as “so despicable, so ugly a lie” .
The end of the very long hearing was marked by a rare incident: the current companion of Richard Berry, Pascale Louage got up from her place to go and slap Coline Berry-Rojtman, according to concordant testimonies gathered by AFP on the spot .
“Violence has no place in this enclosure,” said Me Karine Shebabo, Coline’s lawyer, at the exit of the room. “Insults are violence,” retorted Pascale Louage, supported by the actor.
Me Shebabo then took the direction of the Aurillac police station to file a complaint. “In twenty years at the bar, I have never seen this. It is all the difficulty of the victims of incest to denounce the facts: we are obliged to strike to silence them”, she said before to leave.