A writer brings a complaint against Michel Brule for sexual assault

Photo le Journal de Montréal, Chantal Poirier
Michel Brule

Camille Garnier

Friday, 20 October 2017 12:28

UPDATE
Friday, 20 October 2017 12:28

Look at this article

A quebec writer said to have filed this morning a complaint of criminal to the police for sexual assault against the publisher Michel Brûlé, whom she is accusing of being thrown on it and of him to have touched the sex during a business meeting.

Writer Jill Side, 41 years old, explained to the Journal that they decided to speak in the wake of revelations about the producer of hollywood Harvey Weinstein, as well as the host Éric Salvail and producer Gilbert Rozon.

Photo Facebook

Jill Side

His complaint, lodged with the police of Quebec, comes a few hours after the Newspaper published testimonies of seven former employees of the publisher Michel Brûlé on the many abuses of a sexual nature that he had allegedly been subjected to for several years in his professional circles.

These witnesses had requested anonymity, with the exception of Sara-Emmanuelle Duchesne. Jill Side, for its part, chose to testify openly and without hiding his identity.

The facts date back to the month of march 2014.

At the time, Mrs. Hand, who was looking to publish a new novel would have sent a manuscript to Michel Brule that she had already met briefly at a literary salon.

It would have declared an interest and had given him an appointment in his local in Quebec city.

“I arrived full of hope with my manuscripts under the arm and I was amazed to see that the specified address does not correspond to professional offices, but rather to a house,” says Jill Side.

Michel Brule would have brought the writer before you make him wait in the library.

“When he came back to pick me up, he told me that he was hungry, and prepared spaghetti that he had eaten in front of me, recalls Ms Side. He began to tell me of his travels to Cuba and his sexual relationships with teenage girls there. It was surreal, I was shocked that he talk to me about it spontaneously. I was completely frozen, I didn’t know how to react. “

Michel Brule would have then invited Ms Side to follow him to the floor.

“I said that we were going to finally talk about my manuscript, but not at all. He started to shave and brush their teeth in front of me. Then he asked me if I wanted to take a shower with him. I refused, of course. “

It is then that the aggression would have occurred.

“He sat on a chair with wheels, he is launched toward me and grabbed him. I pushed it back, I was petrified, I clung to the railing of the stairs. Then he opened his shirt and told me that I would publish if I slept with him. Then again, he is again thrown on me, this time placing his hands on my sex and on my breasts. “.

Ms. Coté would have then pushed again the editor before racing down the stairs to the door of the house.

Michel Brule would have launched at her heels and would be interposed between the door and her.

“He didn’t want me to leave. He told me that he was in love with me. I felt he could read the panic in my eyes. I tried to take child support my coat which was in his closet because I didn’t dare to return. It ended by me to make it. I found myself in the street, completely knocked out. I screamed but no one heard me because there was a party in the neighborhood. Finally I locked myself in my car. “

The writer explains first having considered a complaint before they finally give it up.

“My husband told me dissuaded. At the time, I was sick and he believed that it would add darkness to a daily already difficult. He thought that it was better to put it behind us. “

Today, Jill Side chose to speak and to bring a complaint to prevent other women from being victimized by the editor. The writer is known particularly for his book “The Daughter’s Secret” in which she chronicled her childhood with her father, dying of aids. When the book’s publication in 2006, she had been invited to present on the tv show everyone is Talking about.

Contacted yesterday by telephone, Michel Brule said he never forced anyone to anything and justified on the facts of the sexual misconduct that was alleged by several witnesses as mere jokes.

► The Québec police confirmed that the case number provided to the Newspaper by Ms Side corresponds to a formal complaint filed with its services without being able to give more precision.