Transcripts For BBCNEWS HARDtalk 20170828

In the late 70s, Roman Polanski admitted to having unlawful sex with a 13 year old girl. He spent 42 days in prison, and then fled the us because he feared being given a longer sentence. In the nearly a0 years since, much has been said and written about what happened. But we have hardly heard anything from the girl herself, samantha geimer. I have come to new york to hear her account of what happened, and how it shaped her life. Samantha geimer, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. You have struggled to protect your privacy for nearly a0 years, so why are you choosing to speak up now . I just wanted to tell the story, the true story, my story, on my own terms rather than as a reaction to whatever might be bringing it up in my life, which happens from time to time. So i thought it was time to, on my own terms, at my own time, tell the truth and say the things i wanted to say. Those who say, this is about making some money out of a story that has gone quiet, what would you say to them . It never goes quiet for very long for me, not that much, so that is out of my control. Lets go back to what caused it. You were 13, and the first time you met Roman Polanski, he approached your family. He was looking to take some photographs of young girls. He was looking for a model, and he was a friend of our extended family. He approached you, and you went out with him one evening and he had met your mother, and he took some photographs of you. He came by the house, and met my mother to see if he could do photographs of me. We did test shots a couple of weeks later, during the day, so that was how that happened. What was your feeling at the time . What were you hoping would come from it . I was hoping i would be in vogue paris, and it would be my big shot at getting some parts and having an acting career. You went out with him, and you write about it in your book. You gradually took your clothes off while he took photos of you up on a hill in a public place. But you didnt tell your mother. He asked me to change my shirt, and took photos while i was topless. I let him do that, and i didnt tell my mother. Then he gets back in contact, and he wants to take more. What was your feeling there . I was a little uncomfortable, but i really wanted that opportunity to be in vogue paris, so i went ahead with it. You wrote about it, saying, whatever i did on that hill, it might put me on the map, my family would be stoked. So everyone will be happy that you are making it. Right. So tell me about that night. You went off with a friend as well, but she didnt stay. No, she never went along. He said we would be kind of late, and she couldnt stay late. I didnt see it as a big deal or a problem. And he ended up taking you up to Jack Nicholsons house . What were your expectations . Ijust hoped wed get good photos. I thought we would do photos until we lost the light and then i would go home later. From the moment you arrive, he gave you champagne . We had photographs, and there was a housekeeper and they opened some champagne, and i was using it during the photos to drink it and also as a prop. And he kept pouring you champagne. So he kept refilling it . Yes. And he also gave you a sedative . He offered me that, and i took it, i dont know why. Can you explain why you went along with a lot of the things he was asking . I thought i was working, it was a modelling job, so i was there to model and do has he said and do it correctly. I thought it was work, most of it was work. The drinking was a lot of fun, since i was 13, almost 14, so that was like a little bonus. When you are younger, having a glass of champagne is nice. But i wasnt experienced enough to know that i had maybe had too much. He says, he wrote in his autobiography, there is no doubt about her experience and lack of inhibition. He says you werent unresponsive. Im sure he would like to remember it that way, so thats ok. I obviously had a lack of inhibition or wouldnt have been posing topless. So thats on me was there a question of how much you allowed . I was foolish. I thought i was mature but i was naive. So i didnt see the warning signs. Maybe, i knew it was somehow inappropriate, but i didnt put it together that it might go further, and something that might happen. And it did go an awful lot further. What ended up happening that night. You have written about it in your book, that it went, it was rape, sexual intercourse. Yes, it was modelling, then he wanted to get in the jacuzzi with me. I realised it was wrong, i had been drinking and i had taken that pill, so i was just confused and after that he was going to have sex. And that is what happened. I didnt know how to stop it. You were saying no . I said no several times. I was afraid, i was unprepared, i was surprised. He also sodomised you, didnt he . Yes. And that was because he was nervous about getting you pregnant . That is what everyone seems to think so i will go with that. What did you think . I was scared and i didnt know how to stop it. I knew what sex was, and i figured, this is what is happening. I didnt know how to get out of it so i figured that since it was going to happen, lets just hope it happens quickly and will be done and ill go home afterwards. I asked whether you allowed it. The other question that has been asked again and again is why your mother allowed it. Why she couldnt see the warning signs. There were no warning signs. He was a respected man. Who would have thought he would do something so inappropriate . There was nothing to indicate he would do that. He was well known, and you wouldnt expect that from someone who would suffer those kind of consequences. He was incredibly high profile, so do you think there was a presumption that somebody so famous wouldnt do Something Like that . Yes, absolutely. And the times. Trying to remember the 70s, was it more accepted do you think . The various comments that people have made about the case. 0ther directors, howard koch, for example. It is one of those situations, that he could find himself in this situation. Anyone could. It is an older mans opinion. Times were different. I was still 14. You make the point that Brooke Shields had just posed nude at age ten, and she had been a child prostitute at the age of ten in pretty ba by. I was aware ofjodie foster being in taxi driver. It wasnt uncommon for young girls to be in sexualised parts. So, for your mother, she knew you were there, and you even called her, didnt you . And told her everything was all right . Yes, i thought everything was all right. I was fine at that point. And in all that time, you have never been angry with her. It seems the only time you angry with her was for letting the police know. Yes, i was immature and i was angry that she called the police because that really brought down a lot of difficult, terrible, horrible times. But she had to call the police. As a younger person i was angry, i wish she hadnt, because then it would have just been over, and instead it went on for a year. It went on for a lot longer, didnt it . Yes. You said of the subsequent process, if i had to choose between reliving the rape or the grand jury testimony, i would choose the rape. Yes, it was ten minutes. The grand jury, everyone was then involved. My mother, my sister, my boyfriend. The whole family. And that was just one day of weeks that i had to go through. And then of course the years. The effect on your family over the years. Yes, i think it affected my family even more than it affected me. It was quiet for quite a long time after that. You did say then that later when you are asked about it, if you had a daughter who was raped at 13, you almost question whether you would call the police. Would you . Probably, but i might think about that carefully after my own experience. Because of what happened afterwards . Because i wouldnt want to make it worse than just being raped. For me, it made it 100 times worse. I would hesitate. When you look back, you talk about this sense of what people expect of you. They almost wanted. There was a sense of disappointment. If only he had hurt me worse, in more obvious ways, it would have been better. It was strange and awful in a lot of ways. It started immediately, that night. Police, the hospital, police station. The next day, the District Attorneys office. Then the fact that everyone was lying on top of that. Then, trying to prove he did it, it was like, if there was more proof, if i was more damaged, then we could prove i wasnt lying. It was a strange thing. These were people who were on your side. Yes, and that came up after time. They are on my side, yet wanting to prove something bad happened to me. It was really confusing for me, i was only 1a, and it was confusing to have to go through all that, to be forced to do so many things. I was so angry about all of it. Did you feel as if they didnt care . That you were hurt, you just werent hurt in the right way . I didnt think i was hurt. I was wondering why everyone was continuing to hurt me as some kind of requirement for what i had already been through. So the consequences of the rape. It was bad. It was really, really bad. The phone rang off the hook, everyone was calling me a liar, we couldnt leave the house. It started the next day. It was awful. Some of the things that were coming at you, it was presumed that you had asked for it. It was presumed that i was lying, that i had asked for it, that my mother had sold me to him. Every awful thing you could presume was presumed about me and my family. The judge said, what have we got here, a mother daughter hooker team . Right, the judge said that. You also say that you werent the kind of victim people wanted. You didnt behave in the way people wanted. That was more at the time. At the time i was a really angry young girl. Im sure i wasnt behaving the way people wanted me to then. But later, people want you to be interesting and damaged and traumatised. They would like to exaggerate what happened to you to make it more interesting. So, i dont co operate with that because that is not who i am. It is like a disappointment for everyone that i am fine and i got over it. You have been critical of the victim culture and suggested that it does more damage to people . In recent days, it is like that there is a whole little Entertainment Industry built up around victims of crime and they are just used for ratings or for selling copies and spit out. I dont think that any of the people doing that really care about them or want to help them. They are just helping themselves at the expense of someone who has had a hard time. The victim themselves should not see it as sympathy. You think it damages their life . I know from experience that people insisting that you be a victim and put that on display for them and carry it out with you is damaging. How could it not be . As a result of your reluctance to continue the trial process, all sides have come to this idea. As a result of this, the more serious charges are dropped and he admits to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. A deal is reached with the judge on sentencing that you were happy with, werent you . Yes. But the judge reneged on that deal and that is where the problem seems to have. Their legal problems began with the judge. Responsibility because he did not stick to the deal. He wanted to change it every time he thought that he was getting bad press which is not how ourjustice system is supposed to work. As a result of his attempt to change it, that is what led to Roman Polanski fleeing the country . He was supposed to have probation and the judge was angry because of a photo of him in germany was published with a caption saying that he was having a good time. He made him come back and gave him an illegal sentence of 90 days as a diagnostic study. They then let him out in 42 days and the judge was angry again. Thejudge wanted to put him back in for an indeterminate amount of time which can mean for up to 50 years and said, come back in a few weeks and i will let you out for time served. Which was on the judges word which was good for nothing. Do you sympathise with Roman Polanski . Sure, that is not how you are supposed to be treated in court. You understand why he fled . I understand and i was kind of glad he did. Really . It was nice that he was gone and it was over for a little while. It was over for a little while and i wonder if you think that it could have been resolved, but for the judge . It could have easily been resolved and should have been resolved and the judge just make sure that did not happen because he was concerned about himself and his own image and he was really enjoying the publicity and really wanted a trial. I think that he was disappointed that they werent going to put me on the stand at 1a to be cross examined. Do you now feel angrier with the judge than you do with Roman Polanski . He is no longer alive. If i had to pick, yes, i am not still angry but i definitely feel that he bears the responsibility for the way that this has worked out for all of us. You say that you felt relieved when Roman Polanski left. Yes, he was gone it was only a matter of time because in the years since then, there have been legal manoeuvres from all sides and we have this situation in 2009 when he was arrested in switzerland. And you said that the panic attacks and insomnia you had suffered on and off your entire life returned in full force. That was bad. They did not tell me that would happen so it was a complete shock. I called home because i was out of town. I called home to tell them to unplug the phone which is standard procedure when anything happens. Within hours, they called back, saying that there were reporters in the yard and people there with cameras and people parked up front. They would not leave and i was in colorado. I did not think it could get as bad as 1977 but it felt like it did. You said when he was released that he was released and put under house arrest. He said that you are relieved . I felt terrible. Why should he be injail . How can you feel good about that . I wake up in the morning and the nightmare is back and he is in his 70s, sitting in a jail somewhere. I dont know who would feel good about that but i didnt. The District Attorney said at the time that it was about a 44 year old defendant who plied a 13 year old with drugs and then committed sodomy and sexual intercourse upon her. That would be why he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. All that other stuff the District Attorney likes to say for shock value, that is not what he pled guilty to. Thats just all for show. And i think to embarrass me. Because i do not help them. You think that the District Attorney were setting out to make life difficult for you . Yes. But there is another argument that this is in the public interest. That here is somebody who did something and was never fully held to account because he fled. And it was never resolved. But thats not true. He was never supposed to serve any time and he served 42 days. He did everything he was asked until it became so unreasonable that no one would do it. You quoted Jaclyn Freeman in your book who campaigns on this matter and she says that rape is not just a crime against one person but also against the social fabric which binds us altogether. The argument is that you may want it to go away and he may want it to go away but it sends a really Important Message to somebody to not do this. That is true that he played guilty. He served his time. I dont understand why people think that he should do more than that. We have the situation where this man who you hardly know, you only met three or four times, in one of which he raped you. You are virtual strangers and yet you are campaigning for him . I am not campaigning for him but i will campaign against a corrupt court, all by myself, for anybody. That is just my personal feeling about it. I couldnt not do it. In the process, is it campaigning for justice for the victim, as you go forjustice for the defendant . I think there needs to be both. Justice should be for the defendant, for the victim. It should be fair. But while you are arguing this, this comes back to again, in a sense, to whether you are the kind of victim that the public likes . I am not. It is just the truth. The truth is that he served his sentence. Undoubtedly, the majority of Public Opinion was against him. Yes, which is interesting because now it is. But i know what that feels like because when this happened, it was all against me. That is the change of culture between 1977 and now. In the 70s. I was lying, we had set him up. I was lying, we had set him up. People called my house and asked if we were prostitutes, we were hated, it was terrible. And now it is reversed so i know what it is like to be on the wrong end of it. He wrote you a letter of apology in 2009 . Yes. Did that help in any way . It helped because it made my mother feel better and that made me feel better. Even a couple of friends. For me, every one of my family is upset and i want them to feel better because i am fine. In it, he said he wanted you to know how sorry he was and that they should give your mother a break. The fault was mine, not my mothers. I knew he felt that way. I appreciated it and it made my mother feel better. This strange relationship you have with this man. You have been tied to him all your life . Yes. I used to think that it might end but i think now we both realise its permanent. You have been in contact with him . You have e mailed each other . We have had some limited contact and he sent me that note but nothing personal, nothing important. How do you feel about him . I hope hes well. I know that he has a wife and children so i have some sympathy for the way he gets treated about this because, like i said, ive been on the other end of it as well. I dont have strong feelings. I dont really know him. Youre not curious . About what . About what hes like, about what it would be like if he saw you . I dont know. I dont know why. What difference does it make to me . Its not part of my life, who he is. Samantha geimer, thank you for coming on hardtalk. Thanks for having me. Hello. A full uk forecast is on the way and i can tell you, it will be nothing like as disruptive or dangerous as the weather still seeing on the other side of the atlantic. Tropical storm harvey has already delivered over one metre of rain in parts of texas. The radar picture shows the weather has been relentless and it continues on tuesday. We are likely to see further flooding and the problems may extend further east as well, along the gulf coast, through parts of louisiana, mississippi, alabama. The risk of tornadoes as well. This dangerous weather situation is continuing. Back home, some spots on monday got up to 28 degrees and south eastern areas could see something similar on tuesday. Further north and west, areas of cloud working into the picture. This through yorkshire, lincolnshire, the south of wales wales and the south west. Slow moving, the odd spot of rain. It marks a line between cooler and fresh air from the north west and some warmth that clings on the south eastern corner. Some sunny spells through london, essex, suffolk, kent. Some spots here could get up to 28 degrees. Not a bad day for the Channel Islands but for the south west of england, some cooler, fresher air. Despite some sunshine, 17 or 18 degrees. Maybe 20 in cardiff. A stripe of cloud stretching up across a good part of the midlands. For Northern Ireland, we end up with a mixture of sunshine and showers. Temperatures on the low side. Some heavy showers being blown into northwest scotland on a strong and blustery wind. Maybe 17 degrees in aberdeen. Not too bad across northern england. Some sunshine but lincolnshire and the north norfolk coast as well, cloud and drizzle and misty, murky conditions. For tuesday night and the early part of wednesday, warm, but by the end of the night, two different weather systems swarming and gathering down to the south. These bring a pretty wet day for parts of southern england, the midlands and wales as we go through wednesday. 0ne weather system towards the south west, one to the south east. The two are likely to merge to bring a lot of cloud, outbreaks of rain, blustery winds and a cool, fresh feel to the weather. Temperatures well down across parts of the south east. Maybejust 17 degrees in london. Through northern england, Northern Ireland and scotland, afairamounts of sunshine, some showers and temperatures similar, 16 or 17 degrees. We stick with the cooler, fresher feel for the end of the week with some spells of sunshine and just a few showers. This is newsday on the bbc. Im rico hizon in singapore, the headlines. North korea fires a missile that passes over northern japan. Prime minister shinzo abe says hell make utmost efforts to protect the public. Catastrophic flooding in texas forces thousands of people into shelters President Trump warns it will be a long and difficult road to recovery. We have pledged ourfull support as texas and louisiana rattle and recover from this very devastating and historic storm. Has probably never been anything like this. There has. There im Babita Sharma in london