Roman Polanski facing US civil trial over alleged rape of girl in 1973

Director Roman Polanski is facing a civil trial in the US after being sued by a woman who has accused him of raping her at his home when she was under 18 in 1973.

The claim was aired in a news conference led by well-known US lawyer Gloria Allred. The claimant also appeared but did not give her name and was introduced as Jane Doe.

“It took me a really long time to decide to file this suit against Mr Polanski, but I finally did make that decision,” she said. “I want to file it to obtain justice and accountability.”

Polanski, now 90, has strenuously denied the woman’s allegations and says the lawsuit is unconstitutional.

The filmmaker is still facing a separate unresolved criminal sexual assault case in Los Angeles after pleading guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse and then leaving the country before a sentencing hearing in 1978.

In the civil lawsuit made public on Tuesday, the woman making the allegations said she went to dinner with Polanski, who knew she was under 18, in 1973, months after meeting him at a party.

She said he gave her tequila shots at his home beforehand and at the restaurant, and that she became groggy and he drove her home. She claims she then remembers lying next to him in his bed.

“He told her that he wanted to have sex with her,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiff, though groggy, told Defendant ‘No.’ She told him, ‘Please don’t do this’. He ignored her pleas. Defendant Polanski removed Plaintiff’s clothes and he proceeded to rape her causing her tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering.”

At the news conference, Ms Allred said the woman was under 18 at the time but did not confirm her exact age, saying she would “be more specific at the appropriate time in this lawsuit”.

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Polanski’s defence lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs said in an email sent to the Associated Press news agency that the filmmaker “strenuously denies the allegations made against him in the lawsuit and believes that the proper place to try this case is in the courts”.

The lawsuit was filed at Los Angeles Superior Court in June 2023 under a California law that temporarily allowed people to file claims of childhood sexual abuse after the statute of limitations had expired.

Under the law, Polanski could not be named initially so the lawsuit was not reported by media outlets at the time.

A judge has since given approval to use his name in the case and has set a trial for 2025.

In his legal response to the lawsuit, Polanski’s attorney denied all of its allegations and asserted that the filing is unconstitutional because it relies on a law not passed until 1990.

A major figure in the New Hollywood film renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s, Polanski directed movies including Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.

Polanski’s lawyers have been fighting for years to end the criminal case against him and lift an international arrest warrant that has stopped him returning to the US.

He continued making films and won an Oscar for best director for The Pianist in 2003. However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled him in 2018 after the #MeToo movement gained momentum.

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