The woman who, as a schoolgirl, was the victim of a statutory rape by Roman Polanski has told academy members they should feel free to give him an Oscar. Polanski, who fled the US in 1977 and is still on the wanted list, has been nominated for the best director award at next month’s Oscars. Samantha Geimer, now 38 and living in Hawaii with her husband and three sons, made her plea in an article in the Los Angeles Times in which she urged academy voters to choose Polanski and his film, The Pianist, as Oscar winners despite his crimes. She said that what the Polish director did to her 25 years ago should not affect their judgment.Geimer was 13 when Polanski, then 44, told her mother he wanted to take pictures of her for a French magazine at a photo session in Los Angeles. He gave her champagne and a drug that causes drowsiness, then had sex with her at a house on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. ”It was not consensual sex by any means,” wrote Geimer in her article. ”I said no repeatedly but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was alone and I didn’t know what to do. It was very scary and, looking back, very creepy. ”Polanski was arrested and charged with a number of sex offences. He was detained in a secure unit for psychiatric evaluation. Eventually, the district attorney, his lawyers and Geimer’s lawyers reached an agreement whereby he would enter a guilty plea and be sentenced to time he had already served. However, just before sentencing, the trial judge indicated he had changed his mind and hinted that he might jail Polanski for up to 50 years. The director fled and has never returned to the US. He now lives in France. Now Polanski is up for an Oscar as best director for his film The Pianist about the holocaust and the Warsaw uprising. The film is up for best film. This week in London it took the equivalent awards at the Baftas. But in LA, some academy members have indicated they would be reluctant to award an Oscar to a convicted sex offender — particularly one whose victim was a 13-year-old.”I believe that Mr Polanski and his film should be honoured according to the quality of the work,” wrote Geimer. ”What he does for a living and how good he is at it have nothing to do with me or what he did to me … I think academy members should vote for the movies they feel deserve it. Not the people they feel are popular.”She added: ”I don’t have any hard feelings toward him, or any sympathy either. He is a stranger to me.”Geimer also said Polanksi should be allowed to return to the US because the longer he remained a fugitive, the longer she had to deal with the issue.”My attitude suprises many people,” she wrote. ”They don’t know how unfairly we were all treated by the press. Talk about feeling violated! The press made that year a living hell and I’ve been trying to put it behind me ever since.”She said the cases of many other girls who were also victims were ignored because they were not the victims of celebrities. The LA district attorney is less forgiving. A spokeswoman said: ”As far as we are concerned, Mr Polanksi is still a fugitive and he would be treated as such if he ever tried to return.”Polanksi has declined to discuss the issue and made it clear he has no intention of returning for the ceremony in Hollywood on March 23. The academy will not set up a satellite link so that he can participate from Paris although the Directors Guild of America is doing so for its ceremony this Saturday when he is also nominated. — Â