“Since the release of this book, I have become the bastard, the rapist of young girls. Gilles Beyer is on his second day in police custody. In front of him, an investigator from the brigade for the protection of minors (BPM) of Paris who, at the beginning of January 2021, ends with her hearing for nearly a year of investigations, launched in the wake of the publication of the book by Sarah Abitbol. Without naming it, the former skater, world medalist, accuses over the pages of "Un si long silence" her ex-trainer of having raped her several times when she was a teenager, on the sidelines of her early learning. from the 1990s. “It took thirty years for my hidden anger to finally turn into a public cry,” she wrote. You destroyed my life. "
A shocking book, which triggers an unprecedented wave of freedom of speech on sexual violence in sport and causes the resignation of the president of the French Federation of Ice Sports (FFSG), Didier Gailhaguet. But also brings justice to look into the case of Gilles Beyer. At the beginning of February 2020, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for rape and sexual assault on minors by a person with authority over the victim in order to "identify all the other victims who may have suffered, in the context described, similar offenses. ". BPM then immersed itself in the career of this 64-year-old former director of the French teams, also accused of rape by another former skater, Hélène Godard.
Sarah Abitbol wrote a book a year ago in which she accuses her ex-trainer of raping her.
LP / Delphine Perez
Among the first people to be heard: Sarah Abitbol, 45.
The one who baptized him "Monsieur O" for "Garbage" in his book, affirms during his hearing on February 17 to have been the victim of between 10 to 12 rapes, spread between the summer of 1990 and the spring of 1992, that is to say when 'she was 15 and 16 years old.
To the investigators, the ex-skater describes a first relationship imposed on the night of July 21, 1990, where Gilles Beyer takes advantage of an internship in La-Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée) to rape her in the dormitory.
And communicates to them the identity of other people in the world of figure skating who may have been victims of his alleged attacker.
Spared by a procedure 20 years ago
Here they are immersed in a world that Gilles Beyer masters perfectly. Skater, trainer, manager, gala organizer: the 1978 French champion has known it all. An influential personality, whose excessive alcohol consumption was mentioned by several witnesses, and whose behavior with young girls has already earned him to be in the sights of justice. In 2001, a report was sent to the Ministry of Sports, evoking several sexual assaults on underage skaters. If the administrative investigation causes him to lose his functions as a state executive, the judicial investigation is closed without follow-up. The interested party denies any sexual assault and just admits having made a “good faith” error by sleeping in the same bed as one of his protected young people.
For justice, there was therefore no Beyer case 20 years ago, when the facts reported by Sarah Abitbol were not yet prescribed.
Despite the various reports, the person has remained a staple of figure skating.
He carried out several mandates within the executive board of the FFSG, continued his coaching activities within the Parisian club of the French Volants and even held the position of head of the tricolor delegation at the world junior championships in 2011.
PODCAST> "It's my best victory": a year after her shocking book, the skater Sarah Abitbol confides
"In the world of skating functioning as a microcosm where passions (sic) mingle, it actually seems that Gilles Beyer has committed a certain number of moral and / or professional faults, we read in the conclusions of the police procedure. court of the time, exhumed by the BPM.
However, it does not appear that he committed any qualifiable criminal offenses.
"
“Suspicions arose and did not lead to anything.
We want to understand what facts could have occurred and especially how, regrets Me Bruno Cavalié, lawyer of the French Federation of ice sports, civil party in the file.
There have been serious abuses, we hear to see at what level, and the FFSG wants to take all necessary measures to remedy it.
"
The book convinced women to testify
In his quest to retrace Gilles Beyer's career, BPM investigators are held back by an environment where omerta still reigns in places, even decades later.
Designated by several people as a potential victim of the trainer, Julie
(the first name has been changed)
refuses to testify, justifying the police that "it was not because some people were ready to speak that she should be too. ".
Another woman, designated by a former skater as the target of an assault on Beyer in the mid-2000s, does not respond to multiple requests from investigators.
The former skater claimed during her hearing to have been the victim of between 10 and 12 rapes, spread between the summer of 1990 and the spring of 1992. JEAN BAPTISTE QUENTIN
But at the same time, the police benefit from the media spotlight of Sarah Abitbol's book. Several ex-skaters, moved by the story of the former high-level athlete, spontaneously contact the BPM to give their testimony. One of them, Pauline
(first name has been changed)
, who claims to have had multiple sexual relations with the former trainer in the late 1980s and now says he has lived a relationship under the influence not to mention rape, agrees to deliver a copy of his diary of the time.
We discover the texts of a teenage girl in love and fascinated by her trainer, 14 years her senior.
Other skaters passed by the Beyer stable evoke "a ladies' man", "a little heavy", who had a tendency "to burst into the locker room while the girls are half naked" and to seek "physical contact. At the slightest opportunity.
To read also "They believed me, that relieved me": victims of sexual violence, these sportswomen dared to speak
If the Sarah Abitbol case can no longer be judged, it occupies a prominent place in the hearings of Gilles Beyer.
Heard five times by investigators during his 48-hour custody, between January 6 and 8, the former coach of the world medalist gives a version opposite to that of his former protégé, evoking only relations agreed with the one who was still a teenager.
"A liar and a manipulator"
"I took her home, her mother had not arrived," he explained to investigators on January 6. Sarah told me she was going to take a shower. She came back to me then, very naked, and she made advances to me. And I couldn't resist. According to him, the "inappropriate relations", mentioned via a press release from his lawyer Me Thibault de Montbrial in January 2020, are the fact of his student at the time. In front of the police, Gilles Beyer accuses him of having blackmailed him. "Sarah Abitbol told me that if we did not start again, she would tell her parents and my wife everything because we all knew each other very well", he assures, then denouncing "repeated and incessant requests towards [him] ”and“ stolen kisses ”from the skater. He only identifies three sexual relationships, between 1991 and 1992,and several refusals on her part before, to listen to her, a final "no" to the skater in November of this year.
"I take this opportunity to say, since we are on the subject of Sarah Abitbol, that she is a liar and a manipulator, since she presented it as a rape when it was not one", launches the sixty-year-old in police custody, annoyed by "incredible situations" invented by the one who now lives in the United States, such as evening visits to the dormitories of the summer camp at La Roche-sur-Yon. However, several of his former students have told of Gilles Beyer's coming to their room, once the lights are out. One of them, Clotilde
(the first name has been changed)
, remembered that he sat on the edge of her bed one evening before trying to kiss her while stroking her. She then pretended to want to sleep to make him leave. Evokes him a simple role of night surveillance.
Read alsoSexual violence.
Katia Krier: "I'm not Ms. Fourniret of skating"
In the eyes of Gilles Beyer, Sarah Abitbol has published a book with the sole aim of "bringing down" in order to become a national skating coach.
"She knew that it was impossible as long as I was in place, just like Gailhaguet and Katia Krier
(Editor's note: ex-wife of Gilles Beyer and former deputy national technical director of the FFSG)
", he explains to the police officers.
Prescription obliges in the Sarah Abitbol file, the BPM resolves to make a leap into the present. And, extremely rare in this type of sexual violence cases, will identify six new potential victims whose stories can still be prosecuted against Gilles Beyer. Unlike the skating medalist, these adult women all denounce acts of sexual harassment and, for three of them, sexual assaults, which would have taken place between 2014 and 2020. This applies to the former coach of 'be indicted for these charges and placed under judicial supervision on January 8.
Among the new complainants, Sabina Mahamoud, whose skater daughter Nadjma once frequented the ice of the Flying French, accuses Gilles Beyer of having sent her obscene messages by text while he was part of the leaders of the Parisian club.
The latter would have, according to her, offered by telephone to exempt Nadjma from registration fees in exchange for four weekly sexual relations and put a hand on the buttocks during a meeting at the club, two accusations denied by the interested.
Text messages in a "bit hard" style
"Gilles Beyer tried to exploit the precariousness of my client by praising the extraordinary potential of his daughter and the financial benefits that her promising career could have had," says Me Sahand Saber, Sabina Mahamoud's lawyer.
This perversity has deprived French sport of many of its young talents.
Another skater's mother, Nathalie (the first name has been changed), is also among the cases of sexual harassment retained by the courts.
Just like Laure Detante, former student of the skating star, who denounces both inappropriate touching on the part of Gilles Beyer during his adolescence and then, in adulthood, many libidinous messages alluding to "his body and his underwear ”.
WORLD CHPTS
Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), March 2000. Sarah Abitbol (back, left), Stéphane Bernadis and Gilles Beyer (right, leaning on the railing).
MARTIN
Questioned by the police on these new accusations, Gilles Beyer maintains the same line of defense.
If he admits to having sent text messages to the style "a little hard", for, he says, to spice up a sex life weighed down by a serious disease, denies him any physical aggression.
In particular those evoked by Laura and Jeanne
(the first names have been changed)
, two former members of a troupe, directed by Beyer, of a show entitled "Star on Ice".
To investigators, the two young women described a man who took advantage of his role to barge into the locker room at any time or touch their buttocks or chest.
"Touching", maintains the sixty-year-old, who highlights "the smallness of the places" and "the effervescence of the shows".
His famous hands on the buttocks before hitting the ice, as many skaters have told?
"A slap supported to say
Come on, there we go, it's the start,
" he says.
“Writing text messages to 40-year-old women and raping young girls is not the same,” insists Gilles Beyer.
Contacted, the lawyer for the former French skating champion, Me Thibault de Montbrial, did not wish to speak.
The investigation by the juvenile protection brigade is continuing with a view to identifying other potential victims.
"The file is far from being finalized, assures a person close to the investigation.
It is believed that other people can still speak.
"