Polanski sues over claim he tried to seduce woman before wife’s funeral

FILM director Roman Polanski told a British libel jury yesterday that it was an “abominable lie” to suggest he exploited his murdered wife’s name to seduce a girl.

He is suing Conde Naste, publishers of Vanity Fair, over a July 2002 article about the events of August 1969, when 26-year-old Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and four friends were slaughtered at her Californian home by Charles Manson's 'Family'.

It said that just afterwards, Polanski, who was in London at the time of the crime, made sexual advances to a "Swedish beauty" in Elaine's restaurant in New York, "inundating her with his Polish charm".

It recounted an onlooker as saying: "Fascinated by his performance, I watched as he slid his hand inside her thigh and began a long honeyed spiel which ended with the promise, 'I will make another Sharon Tate out of you'."

Polanski's case, which will be supported by evidence from actress Mia Farrow and Ms Tate's sister, Debra, who was in court yesterday, was that the incident never happened at all.

He said that when he read the article, he was "in a state of shock".

"This was the worst thing ever written about me.

"It is obvious it's not true. I don't think you could find a man who could behave in such a way but I think it was particularly hurtful as it dishonours my memory of Sharon. I think that is truly shocking."

The 71-year-old is giving evidence by video link from Paris. He said he could not risk coming to Britain and facing possible extradition to the US, which he fled before sentence after pleading guilty, in 1977, to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

His QC, John Kelsey-Fry, said that the article meant that in the immediate aftermath of hearing of the loss of his wife and child, Polanski went "on the pull and, moreover, exploited his now late wife's name as a tool of seduction".

It was an allegation of "monstrous conduct" and of "callous indifference to his wife's memory of breathtaking proportions".

The magazine, which denies libel and says the article was substantially true, now accepts that the incident did not happen when Polanski was on his way back to Hollywood for Ms Tate's funeral, but says it occurred about two weeks later.

It will suggest that, even if their defence fails, Polanski should not be awarded any damages as his reputation has been affected by his 1977 conviction and libertine past.

Mr Kelsey-Fry said that 1969 was a time of "make love, not war", of "pot-smoking hippies" and "free love".

Polanski, who is married to actress Emmanuelle Seigner and has two children, said his brief marriage to Ms Tate they wed in January 1968 was happy.

Wiping away a tear, he added: "She was just, in my eyes, a perfect woman."

He remembered the period after her death as "one of the darkest moments in my life".

His relationship with Ms Tate was not monogamous and he had sex with other women, both before and during their marriage.

Asked if she knew he was unfaithful, he replied: "She must have. She must have suspected. She knew what kind of man I was when we met and at that time we talked about it."

Polanski said he had sex at least on one occasion with two women at the same time one was 15 or 16 and the other was 18.

He told Mr Shields: "I can assure you it wasn't illegal. It was within the laws of that country.

"I made only one mistake and I am still suffering for that."

Asked if he was a "fugitive from justice", he said: "As far as those events are concerned, I would not even start to justify myself."