A British tourist has accused a police officer of raping her while she was handcuffed in his car in the south of France.
The 37-year-old holidaymaker has said she was picked up from a street in La Ciotat, a commune around 15 miles to the east of Marseille, by three policemen.
It is believed that on September 10 the woman filed a complaint about the incident, said to have occurred the night before.
She said she was detained by authorities for “obvious drunkenness” and then placed in handcuffs and told to sit inside the police car.
According to the complaint, a police officer then sat next to her in the car and started kissing her before he allegedly “penetrated her”.
One officer remains in custody having been charged with “rape and sexual assault by a person abusing the authority conferred on them by their position” three days after the woman’s complaint was made.
Another was charged with “wilful failure to prevent a crime of offence against the integrity of a person” and was placed under judicial supervision.
The third policeman has been placed under assisted witness status, meaning they are implicated in a crime but there is not yet enough evidence for formal indictment.
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Three police officers are involved in the incident at varying degrees
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French newspaper Liberation was the first to report on the incident after it was made aware of it by public prosecutor Nicolas Bessone.
It is understood the woman is being supported by a charity which works with victims of sexual assault.
Violence against women has made headlines across France in the past year.
Last month, a Ukrainian woman in Paris was allegedly raped by a 17-year-old Libyan migrant.
A Libyan migrant was arrested last month after a woman was raped in the bushes in front of the Eiffel Tower (file photo)
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GETTYIt is understood the suspect, who was drunk at the time, dragged the victim into bushes near the Eiffel Tower.
Police were alerted to the incident by the woman’s screams.
And last autumn, the case of 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot shocked not only France, but the world.
Mrs Pelicot was unknowingly given drugs and sedatives by her husband for almost a decade so that he, and 50 other men who he met online, could rape her.
Gisele Pelicot waived her right to anonymity in order to make ‘shame swap sides’
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The court case against her husband Dominique Pelicot, 72, lasted 16 weeks and drew media global media attention.
Mrs Pelicot famously waived her right to anonymity in an attempt to “open the doors” of the trial “so society could see what was happening”.
In her words, Mrs Pelicot wanted “shame to swap sides” from the victim to the rapist.
Her husband was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape, and 47 of the other men were also found guilty of rape.
Their sentences ranged from three to 15 years.
According to Nous Toutes, a French feminist collective, during 2021, 58,000 women between the ages of 18 and 74 living in mainland France were victims of rape.
