Actress Melissa George breaks her silence on the violent assault that ended her relationship

George — one of Australia’s best acting exports
— was delirious and collapsed on the ground.
Allegations about that harrowing night will air
tonight in a tell-all television interview on
Seven’s Sunday Night.
SUNDAY 8:30pm: Actress Melissa
George breaks her silence, telling
@pennells about the violent assault
that ended her relationship. #SN7
pic.twitter.com/rrUnpDA8OS
— sunday night (@sundaynighton7)
March 16, 2017
Atique told the program he helped her into his
Audi. Her blood smeared across the window and
door handle.
He said he kept his car spotless and always
wore a suit when he worked but at that moment
he didn’t care where the blood went.
She allegedly said: “He hit me”.
The man she was accusing was Jean David
Blanc, the wealthy 48-year-old French
entrepreneur she met at a BAFTA after-party in
2011 and who is the father of her two children,
Raphael and Solal.
Pennells meets Atique outside his father’s
Pakistani restaurant in inner-city Paris and he is
still shaken as he remembers the night.
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“She was crying — just crying — and saying ‘I
am scared, I am scared, please go ... he will find
me, I’m scared’,” Owais tells Sunday Night.
“’I have my two babies in the apartment’.
“I say to her ‘stay here, I will go’.
“She said ‘no, my boys are with my babysitters
... I want to go to the police station’.”
He points to his head: “She was bleeding here,
(she alleged) he took my head and ...’”.
That night, Melissa told him what had happened
but Atique struggles to explain in his broken
English. So he demonstrates by grabbing an
invisible head with his hands and banging it
against his car door.
“She was in a lot of pain,” he said.
“It’s horrible. I was crying too.
“I am young. I am just 22 years (and) for me it’s
the first time I see a person in pain and crying.”
Atique wanted to take Melissa to hospital but
she said she wanted to go to a police station.
When he took her there, she vomited. Jean David
Blanc was arrested the next morning.
Two weeks later, Owais received a phone call.
“I’m Melissa George. I was crying in your car
and you went with me to the police station,” she
said. She visited him at his father’s restaurant
and thanked him.
“She’s a very nice person,” he said.
“Always smiling.
“I didn’t know who she was when it happened.
She was just a normal customer.
“I don’t watch English TV or movies.”
Melissa George has stayed silent for the past six
months as the assault and custody battle has
played out in the French courts — where they
were both convicted over the altercation — and
international tabloids.
Jean-David is appealing his conviction and has
denied attacking her. He has accused her of
trying to kidnap their children when she boarded
a private plane with them a week after the fight.
With Melissa George in Paris. What
she's doing takes guts and a lot of
trust. She tells me her story this
Sunday on @sundaynighton7 #SN7
pic.twitter.com/y1iZG3Wo5N
— Steve Pennells (@pennells) March
17, 2017
She has previously denied being aware that
Jean-David had obtained a no-fly order before
attempting to leave France with their children.
Through his lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, who
spoke to News Corp Australia, Jean-David
previously accused Ms George of exaggerating
the injuries she received during the altercation,
and claims he acted in self-defence after she
became “hysterical.’’
In Paris last week, a desperate and emotional
Melissa George was ready to tell her story.
“I want to get home,” she said.
Did Paris feel like home any more?
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“I have two kids that were born here so yeah, it
is home but it is not, Australia is home.
“I work in America, my kids are a third
Australian, a third American and a third French
so we’re part of all these countries, and to be
blocked here with no way out, no family, no
ability to work, no visa, no insurance, no help, no
support from the father, no nothing. Zero.” In the
living room of an apartment in which a friend is
letting her stay, Sunday Night producers arrange
two chairs opposite each other.
Her boys’ fluffy toys are scattered in the room
next door but Raphael and Solal are not home.
It is the first week of a custody arrangement
ordered by a French judge in which the children
will spend every second week with her. This
week, they are with Jean-David.
Without an agent involved, without PR, without
any conditions, George has agreed to talk about
September 7.
The night she collapsed in a bloody heap
opposite The Madeleine Church.
The night an Uber driver named Owais Atique
almost drove away and left her there. The night
everything changed.
She smiles and says she’s nervous.
The camera rolls. For her, it is not only risky,
but deeply personal.
Pennells asks her: “At 3am on September 7, you
walked into a police station and said you’d been
assaulted. What happened?”
She takes a deep breath and tells her side of the
story.
SUNDAY 8:30pm: Melissa George's
tearful account of the violent assault
that ended her relationship. Hear her
story. #SN7 pic.twitter.com/
aFgMCM3HMV
— sunday night (@sundaynighton7)
March 18, 2017
* Steve Pennells is a senior reporter with Seven.
Melissa George airs 8.30pm, Sunday March 19
on Seven’s Sunday Night.
Legal note: Both Mr Blanc and Ms George have
been convicted by the courts after the explosive
September 7 row and physical altercation at their
apartment.
Mr Blanc, with scratches on his face and torso,
spent two nights in custody after Ms George
presented at police with her injuries.
The case first went to court in October.
It was finalised only last month, and the courts
fined both of them, after finding they had each
attacked the other.
The judgement handed down in the Palais de
Justice in central Paris stated Ms George’s
injuries would merit 11 days off work, under
French law, while Mr Blanc’s injuries would merit
one day off work.
He received a one-month suspended jail term
and was ordered to pay 1000 euros ($AUS1400)
in compensation to Ms George.
Ms George was not sentenced to any jail term
but received a 5000 euro (AUS$7000) fine, which
was suspended and she was ordered to pay a
token one euro (AUS$1.40) compensation to Mr
Blanc.
Mr Blanc is also appealing his conviction.
Ms Laffont, whose previous clients include
former president Nicolas Sarkozy, told News
Corp that Mr Blanc had only acted in self-
defence after Ms George attacked him.
“Mr Blanc has said since the start that he was
forced to defend himself against Ms George’s
scratching and attacks,’’ she said.
“Even the prosecutor said that he believed that
11 days was a bit much. She was hardly back
home again (the night of the altercation) when
she was filmed smiling.”