Gilles Beyer is dead.
The former trainer of Sarah Abitbol, accused of rape in January 2020 by the world and European medalist in figure skating, died Thursday according to information from L'Obs, which quotes his ex-wife Katia Krier, and that Le Parisien Today today in France can confirm.
The 66-year-old man suffered from a long illness, according to several relatives.
The name of this former manager of the French figure skating team had arisen in the news in January 2020, when Sarah Abitbol had claimed in her chilling book "Un si long silence" to have been the victim of sexual assault and rape. several times when she was between 15 and 16 years old in the early 1990s. Another of his former athletes, Hélène Godard, had also accused him of raping her in the late 1970s, when she was also a minor.
Indicted in January 2021
Gilles Beyer, then leader of the French Volants de Paris club, had recognized "inappropriate relations with Sarah Abitbol".
The former skater had been indicted and placed under judicial supervision in January 2021, for other alleged sexual violence, the case of Sarah Abitbol being prescribed.
Justice, who had entrusted the investigation to the brigade for the protection of minors, suspected him of having sexually harassed six women and of having sexually assaulted three of them.
Heard by the investigators on these accusations, Gilles Beyer had simply recognized the existence of text messages in the "slightly hard style".
"Writing text messages to 40-year-old women and raping young girls are not the same," he defended himself before the police according to information from Parisian-Today in France.
Sarah Abitbol “in shock”
His death puts an end to the proceedings against him.
" I am in shock.
He leaves before being judged, I would have liked there to be a trial, explains Sarah Abitbol to L'Obs.
It's crazy, this death comes just a week before my show, where I talk about this trauma, the liberation of my speech, my rebirth, and my return to the ice… God has decided so.
»
The testimony had caused a tidal wave and a release of the word of the victims of sexual violence in the world of sport.
The case also led to the resignation of the ubiquitous president of the French ice sports federation, Didier Gailhaguet.
The latter, put under pressure by the Minister of Sports at the time Roxana Maracineanu, left his post in February 2020.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/XRJ5S7YZJBH7DHXLTF7UYFTVBY.jpg)
