Woman accuses Roman Polanski of molesting her when she was 10

A woman has accused Roman Polanski of molesting her when she was 10 years old and started a petition calling for the Polish-born director’s removal from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Marianne Barnard, a California-based artist, said the incident occurred during a photo shoot in 1975 arranged by her mother at a beach in Malibu.

“At first I had the understanding I was just going to the beach with my mom. We were there for a little while by ourselves and then he was there,” she told The Sun on Friday. “And she explained that this man wanted to take pictures of me in this fur coat. I thought it was to go into a magazine or something.”

Barnard said that when the director asked her to remove her swimsuit top during the shoot, she did not sense anything was out of the ordinary.

“First he was taking pictures of me in the bikini, then it was with the coat, then he said take off the bikini top, which I was comfortable with as I was only 10 and I often ran around with no top on,” she said.

“But then he wanted me to take my bikini bottoms off — I started to feel very uncomfortable. Then at some point I realized my mom had gone,” she recalled. “I don’t know where she went and I didn’t really register her leaving but she was no longer there. Then he molested me.”

She wrote on Twitter that she believes her mother arranged the encounter in order to get money from Polanski for a PhD.

My mom allowed/arranged this. I think she wanted $ for her PhD in child Ed/Psych from @UCLA. DHM became prof Grad Ed/Psych at @pepperdine.

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— Marianne Barnard (M) (@Marianne_M_B) October 13, 2017

Barnard said she decided to go public with the story following the wave of recent sexual assault allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.

“I felt terribly conflicted that I have been silent all this time and all these women are bravely coming forward and I thought to myself I can’t in good conscience knowing what I know – and having gone through what I’ve gone through – not speak out,” she said, adding that she hoped any other women allegedly sexually assaulted by Polanski would now come forward and that “he will be finally brought to justice.”

Barnard’s petition has garnered over 13,000 signatures. She wrote in it that Polanski’s removal from the film academy’s board would be “a small consequence for him considering his crimes and the great amount of harm he has caused me and his other victims.”

Her allegation against Polanski came after Swiss prosecutors said earlier this month that they will examine allegations made by a German woman that Polanski raped her in 1972 in the town of Gstaad, when she was 15.

The procedural move meant that Switzerland has not ruled out prosecuting the filmmaker, despite questions as to whether the statute of limitations for the alleged crime has lapsed.

Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former actress, told Swiss police last month that she met Polanski while working as a model in Munich before traveling to his home in Gstaad, where he raped her.

“The prosecutor’s office in the Canton of Bern has confirmed … it will handle (the file),” prosecution spokesman Christof Scheurer said in an email.

Langer was the fourth woman to publicly accuse Polanski of sexual assault.

Polanski in 1977 pleaded guilty in the United States to having unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer — aged 13 at the time — but fled the country before he could be sentenced. He remains a fugitive from the US justice system.

British actress Charlotte Lewis also accused Polanski of assault in 2010. Lewis claimed the director “forced himself” upon her just after her 16th birthday.

In August, a woman identified only as Robin told a news conference in Los Angeles she was “sexually victimized” by the French-Polish film director when she was 16, in 1973.

Polanski’s film career has continued to flourish since he fled the US for France, where many consider him an icon.

He has eight Cesars — the French equivalent of an Oscar — as well as a best director Academy Award for the Holocaust drama “The Pianist.”