Haggis case, review court: ‘No signs of violent sexual intercourse’

“With reference to the contested injuries, it was clearly evident that no signs of violent sexual intercourse were present on the woman.” This is how the Court of Re-examination of Lecce presided over by Carlo Cazzella (rapporteur Annalisa de Benedictis), on July 29, rejected the appeal of the Brindisi prosecutor’s office to request the reinstatement of home custody for the Oscar-winning Canadian director Paul Haggis, accused of sexual assault after the complaint of a 28-year-old foreign woman, and released by the Brindisi court gip.

As for the “acute stress reaction in traumatic event, the technical elaboration offered by the defense,” entrusted to lawyer Michele Laforgia, “calls into question the diagnosis formulated by the medical staff of the Ostuni (Brindisi) hospital, which was evidently affected by the account offered by the woman believed to be a victim of sexual violence.” As for, then, the judicial pendency against the director in New York State Court, according to the Review, “correctly the defense pointed out the procedural unusability (by mode of acquisition) of the documentation produced by the complainant’s attorney.” In the civil suit, “compensation of $9 million was sought on account of an allegedly non-consensual sexual intercourse consummated four years prior to the claim.”

According to the judges, “as correctly observed by the gip, the documentation does not offer significance to the risk of reiteration, as it is merely civil in nature, in the absence of even an investigative verification of the merits of the allegations and the absence of slanderous intent,” the review concludes.

It cannot uncritically hold that the woman’s position and testimony is free from speculative intent.” This is a further passage of the reasons with which the Court of the Re-examination of Lecce, presided over by Carlo Cazzella (rapporteur Annalisa de Benedictis), last July 29, rejected the appeal of the Brindisi prosecutor’s office to request the reinstatement of home custody for the Oscar-winning Canadian director Paul Haggis, accused of sexual assault after the complaint of a 28-year-old foreign woman, and released by the Brindisi court gip.

“On the contrary, the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions together with the manifest non-indifference to the economic fallout of the affair cannot but cast strong doubts on the genuineness of the offended person,” argues the review, which points out that, net of a moral assessment, “the situation that is evident from a reading of the acts is the woman’s attempt at an approach to the director, a well-known and likely financially solid character who welcomes the woman’s initiative only for a sexual acquaintance experience that he probably handles in a trivial and disrespectful manner, so much so as to disappoint the partner’s expectations of a very different nature.”

Congruencies that “cast heavy shadows on the woman’s trustworthiness, greatly compromising the requirement of circumstantial gravity. “According to the review court, which read the messages between the woman and some of her friends, the complainant is “a woman of culture (by degree of education, knowledge of foreign languages), and accustomed to sociability even in territorially extended contexts.” “She attends events of international prominence, such as the film festival, participates in parties in the French Riviera and has no difficulty, not even economically, in moving from Monte Carlo to Ostuni to live different experiences. “For the Review, “her personality is attuned to the way she approaches Haggis”: “Present on the social platform Instagram under a double pseudonym, she draws the director’s attention by means of in tag upon the publication of a photo taken with him in Monte Carlo, on the occasion of a meeting at an Italian film festival.” “Several hours after the notification of the tag, Haggis responds with the emoticon of a smile, which the woman comments on with a heart.”

“Subsequently,” the Review further writes, “the woman proposes to the director, whom she calls the greatest story writer of all time, to meet her for tea in London or Puglia. In the absence of a response from Haggis, the woman sends him photos of her vacation in the south of France and later proposes to join him in Rome or at the Allora Fest in Ostuni, calling herself his Mauritian Muse and sending more photos, without receiving a response. “Haggis,” the Riesame continues, “replies that he cannot invite her to the festival because it is completely sold out, but that she could join him for a quick trip to Puglia. The woman’s response was not long in coming: ‘It would be a real pleasure and honor to come and see you! I think it’s a wonderful idea! We could have a wonderful exchange, meaningful chats and fun that seem great to me. What would you think from late Sunday afternoon until Tuesday?

Where are you located in Apulia? I could fly from Nice to Bari,” according to the message retrieved from Instagram on June 9. “Reading the interlocution clearly reveals a courtship that the woman addresses to the director in order to meet him and spend a few days in his company, probably to establish a personal, rather than professional relationship. This is confirmed by the fact that the woman decides to share the same room and therefore the same bed with her guest,” the judges of the reviewing court write, specifying that “Haggis represents to her that the hotel has no availability of additional rooms, but defers the choice” to the woman with whom, after the sexual intercourse, he went to lunch “in a relaxed and serene atmosphere, to the point of kissing in public.”

According to the review, “it is quite implausible, or at least singular, that the woman who had just been the victim of sexual violence not only remained in the company of her attacker, well being able to get away from him, but even went to lunch with him and returned with him to the hotel,” and “having regard to the intense interlocutions she entertains with her friends, it is not clear why she does not without the need to confide in someone.” As for, then, the state of prostration detected by an operator at the Brindisi airport who helped the woman by encouraging her to file a complaint, the Review pointed out “the absence of adequate rest time combined with the aftermath of alcohol intake” that “certainly contributed to the woman appearing confused and disoriented.”