The 63 -year -old Flemish, was tried for “violence, harassment or sexual harassment at work” towards twelve former collaborators of his company. He also had to answer for a “modesty attack” with regard to one of them.
Le Monde with AFP
Flemish plastic artist and choreographer Jan Fabre, accused of sexual harassment and a modesty attack by dancers from his company, was sentenced on Friday April 29, to eighteen months suspended prison by the court by the court Correctional Antwerp.
During the trial, which was held at the end of March, a sentence of three years in prison had been required against this figure of contemporary art, but the court considered that part of the facts – Some of them dating back to 2002-were prescribed and dismissed the accusations of six of the twelve alleged victims.
Jan Fabre, who had not attended the trial, was also absent from the judgment. “We are satisfied with this judgment,” reacted An-Sofie Raes, one of the lawyers representing the civil parties, cited by the Flemish daily of Standaard.
suspended from a deprivation of civil rights
Consistent by the #MeToo wave in 2018, the 63 -year -old Flemish, was tried for “violence, harassment or sexual harassment at work” towards twelve former collaborators of his company, Désityn. He also had to answer for a “modesty attack” with regard to one of them. Friday, the judgment retained a sexual assault against one of the complainants, and violence or humiliations with regard to five others.
His sentence to eighteen months in prison is accompanied by a stay for a period of five years, a period during which Jan Fabre is deprived of his civil rights, according to a copy of the judgment transmitted to the press.
On March 25, on the first day of the trial, he had been portrayed, in the testimonies of several dancers, as a tyrannical man during rehearsals, regularly humiliating his collaborators and having even exercised with some of them blackmail sexual. Several victims have recounted erotic photo sessions led by the choreographer, under the “false pretext” of a publication in an artistic review. Some sessions ended with sexual intercourse.
The defense of Jan Fabre had delivered, the 1 er April, a completely different image of the artist, portrayed as a “romantic anar”, but certainly “not [like] a criminal” . His lawyer, Eline Tritsmans, admitted the “strong character” of Jan Fabre, and the fact that working with him, “is to give himself 100 %” in exhausting performance where we aim “the real exhaustion, the real emotions “.