Samantha Geimer HARDtalk

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Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

In the late 70s, Roman Polanski admitted to having unlawful sex

He spent 42 days in prison, and then fled the US

because he feared being given a longer sentence.

In the nearly 40 years since, much has been said and written

But we have hardly heard anything from the girl herself,

I have come to New York to hear her account of what happened,

Samantha Geimer, welcome to HARDtalk.

You have struggled to protect your privacy for nearly 40 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,

You were 13, and the first time you met Roman Polanski,

He was looking to take some photographs of young girls.

He was looking for a model, and he was a friend

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

We did test shots a couple of weeks later, during the day,

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

He asked me to change my shirt, and took photos while I was topless.

I let him do that, and I didn't tell my mother.

Then he gets back in contact, and he wants to take more.

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.

You went off with a friend as well, but she didn't stay.

He said we would be kind of late, and she couldn't stay late.

I didn't see it as a big deal or a problem.

And he ended up taking you up to Jack Nicholson's house?

I thought we would do photos until we lost the light and then

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

He offered me that, and I took it, I don't know why.

Can you explain why you went along with a lot of the things

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,

When you are younger, having a glass of champagne is nice.

But I wasn't experienced enough to know that I had maybe

He says, he wrote in his autobiography, there is no doubt

about her experience and lack of inhibition.

I'm sure he would like to remember it that way, so that's OK.

I obviously had a lack of inhibition or wouldn't have

Was there a question of how much you allowed?

I thought I was mature but I was naive.

Maybe, I knew it was somehow inappropriate, but I didn't put it

together that it might go further, and something that might happen.

You have written about it in your book, that it went,

Yes, it was modelling, then he wanted to get

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

I was afraid, I was unprepared, I was surprised.

And that was because he was nervous about getting you pregnant?

That is what everyone seems to think so I will go with that.

I was scared and I didn't know how to stop it.

I knew what sex was, and I figured, this is what is happening.

I didn't know how to get out of it so I figured that

since it was going to happen, let's just hope it happens quickly

and will be done and I'll go home afterwards.

The other question that has been asked again and again

Why she couldn't see the warning signs.

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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't do

Trying to remember the 70s, was it more accepted do you think?

The various comments that people have made about the case.

Other directors, Howard Koch, for example.

"It is one of those situations, that he could find himself

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

I was aware of Jodie Foster being in Taxi Driver.

It wasn't uncommon for young girls to be in sexualised parts.

So, for your mother, she knew you were there,

And told her everything was all right?

Yes, I thought everything was all right.

And in all that time, you have never been angry with her.

It seems the only time you angry with her was for letting

Yes, I was immature and I was angry that she called the police

because that really brought down a lot of difficult,

As a younger person I was angry, I wish she hadn't, because then it

would have just been over, and instead it went on for year.

It went on for a lot longer, didn't it?

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.

The Grand Jury, Everyone was then involved.

And that was just one day of weeks that I had to go through.

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.

Probably, but I might think about that carefully

Because I wouldn't want to make it worse than just being raped.

When you look back, you talk about this sense of what people

If only he had hurt me worse, in more obvious ways,

It was strange and awful in a lot of ways.

Police, the hospital, police station.

The next day, the district attorney's 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 wasn't lying.

These were people who were on your side.

They are on my side, yet wanting to prove something bad

It was really confusing for me, I was only 14, and it was confusing

to have to go through all that, to be forced to do so many things.

That you were hurt, you just weren't hurt in the right way?

I was wondering why everyone was continuing to hurt me as some

kind of requirement for what I had already been through.

The phone rang off the hook, everyone was calling me a liar,

Some of the things that were coming at you, it was presumed that you had

It was presumed that I was lying, that I had asked for it,

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?

You also say that you weren't the kind of victim people wanted.

You didn't behave in the way people wanted.

At the time I was a really angry young girl.

I'm sure I wasn't behaving the way people wanted me to then.

But later, people want you to be interesting

They would like to exaggerate what happened to you to make

So, I don't co-operate with that because that is not who I am.

It is like a disappointment for everyone that I am fine

You have been critical of the victim culture and suggested that it does

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 don't think that any of the people doing that really care about them

They are just helping themselves at the expense of someone who has

The victim themselves should not see it as sympathy.

I know from experience that people insisting that you be a victim

and put that on display for them and carry it out

As a result of your reluctance to continue the trial process,

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 are happy

The judge reneged on that deal and that is where the problem

The legal problems began with the judge.

And continued with the judge and remain the responsibility

of the judge 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 our justice system is supposed to work.

As a result of his attempts 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

He made him come back and gave him an illegal sentence of 90 days

They then let him out in 42 days and the judge was angry again.

The judge 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

Which was on the judge's word which was good for nothing.

Do you sympathise with Roman Polanski?

That is not how you are supposed to be treated in court.

I understand and I was kind of glad he did.

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 except for the judge?

It could have easily been resolved and should have been resolved

and the judge just made sure that did not happen

because he was concerned about himself and his own image

and he was really enjoying the publicity and really

I think he was disappointed that they weren't going to put me

on the stand at 14 to be cross-examined.

Do you now feel angrier with the judge?

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.

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.

You said that the panic attacks and insomnia you had

suffered your entire life returned in full force.

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 a standard

Within hours, they called back, saying that there were reporters

in the yard and people there with cameras and people

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

I wake up in the morning and the nightmare is back

and he is in his 70s, sitting in a jail somewhere.

I don't know who would feel good about that but I didn't.

The district attorney said that it was about a 44-year-old

defendant who plied a 13-year-old with drugs and then committed sodomy

That would be why he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse

All that other stuff the district attorney likes to say for shock

value, that is not what he pled guilty to.

You think the district attorney were setting out to make life

There is another argument - that this is in the public interest.

That here is somebody who did something and was never fully held

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

You quote 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 that 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 very important message to somebody to not do this.

I don't 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's just my personal feeling about it.

In the process, is it campaigning for justice for the victim as you go

Justice should be for the defendant, for the victim.

While you are arguing this, this comes back to again in a sense,

whether you are the kind of victim that the public likes?

Undoubtedly, majority of public opinion was against him.

Yes, which is interesting because now it is.

But I know that feels like because when this happened,

That is the change of culture between 1977 and now.

People called my house and asked if we were prostitutes,

And now it is reversed, so I know what it is like to be

He wrote you a letter of apology in 2009?

It helped because it made my mother feel better and that

For me, every one of my family is upset and I want them to feel

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 your mother's." It was obvious.

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?

I used to think that it might end but I think now that we have both

We have had some limited contact and he sent me that note but nothing

I know he has a wife and children so I have some sympathy

for the way he gets treated about this because, like I said,

I have been on the other end of it as well.

About what he is like, about what he would be

Samantha Geimer, thank you for coming on HARDtalk Thanks

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