The case had shaken the media world. This Friday, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office announced that the investigation for “rapes” targeting PDDA had been closed without follow-up. The former presenter of the TF1 newscast Patrick Poivre d’Arvor was heard in May in open hearing by the police as part of the investigation after the accusations of the writer Florence Porcel.
The case had erupted after the filing of a complaint on February 15 by the young woman, who accuses the famous journalist and novelist, now 73 years old, of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009.
Prescribed facts or insufficient evidence
In a press release released this Friday, June 25, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office explains that “in application of the rules relating to criminal prescription”, the acts of rape denounced by Florence Porcel and by five other women “are analyzed as being prescribed because committed for more than ten years from the date of entry into force of the law extending the limitation period for this crime to 20 years ”.
Florence Porcel blamed the 73-year-old journalist for having forced him to have sex without consent in 2004 and fellatio in 2009. This scene was not covered by the prescription. But, according to the prosecution, “these facts (…) cannot characterize the crime of rape insofar as there is no evidence to confirm the words of one or the other concerning the existence of this scene”, writes the Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis in her press release. In all, twenty-three women in this investigation testified and eight complaints were filed.
At the same time, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor had filed a complaint on March 30, 2021 for “slanderous denunciation” against Florence Porcel. The prosecution announced that this complaint had also been dismissed, “in the absence of demonstration of an intention to harm”.