Pelicot rape case

Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot were both born in 1952. Gisèle Pelicot, née Guillou, was born in Villingen in what was then West Germany, where her father served in the French Armed Forces. She moved to France at the age of five. Although she lost her mother at the age of nine, she later described her childhood as happy and stable. Dominique Pelicot was born in Quincy-sous-Sénart in the Paris region and spent part of his youth in Luçay-le-Mâle, central France, where his parents worked as janitors in a rehabilitation centre. in 2024 Whereas Gisèle came from a relatively privileged background and felt loved by her family, Dominique had a working-class, troubled upbringing. According to Dominique, his father was brutal and abusive to his mother and raped his adopted sister. He also said that he was molested by a male nurse at the age of nine and that, as a teenager, he was forced to witness a gang rape. After two years of secondary education, Dominique had to stop going to school to start an apprenticeship as an electrician; and married in April 1973. Gisèle was employed in administration at Électricité de France, while Dominique worked as an electrician and estate agent and later founded several small businesses that were unsuccessful. The couple lived in the Paris region and had three children. Dominique also had several affairs. In the early 1990s the couple separated again when Dominique left Gisèle for another woman; the Pelicots reconciled once more after a few months. while continuing to live together; they remarried in 2007 under a more beneficial regime. Before the crimes were uncovered, Gisèle was unaware that Dominique had been fined for upskirting women near Paris in 2010; he was fined €100 for that offense. As he approached retirement, Dominique spent much of his free time looking for pornography on the Internet. He attributed this to sexual frustration in his marriage because his wife refused to engage in certain practices and was not interested in swinging. Around 2010 or 2011, an online acquaintance sent Dominique photos of his wife whom he sedated, and instructed him on how he could do the same to his own partner. After hesitating for a short while, Dominique decided to follow suit. ==Patterns of abuse==

(Temesta) to sedate his wife. Dominique's abuse of Gisèle started after she was prescribed lorazepam (Temesta), an anxiolytic drug, which made her drowsy. Gisèle only took it for a short while, but Dominique took advantage of this by secretly adding pills to her food and drinks, causing her to lose consciousness. While Gisèle was unconscious, Dominique committed sexual acts, such as anal sex, which his wife had not wished to participate in, or dressed her in lingerie she refused to wear. On the forum, Dominique claimed that he and his wife shared a fetish for men having sex with her while she was asleep, and did not state outright that he drugged and abused her without her knowledge; Skype messages were found in which he boasted of drugging his wife. The final phase of Dominique's selection process was to meet his future co-perpetrator in person in his neighborhood. Once he had verified the man's identity, Dominique would set a date for the rape. The men whom Dominique invited to rape his wife were given strict instructions to, for example, avoid smelling of fragrance or cigarette smoke, in case it alerted Gisèle to their presence. By the time the Pelicots retired and settled in Mazan, Dominique had perfected his modus operandi: he kept his tranquilisers in a shoebox in their garage, switching brands because the first was too salty to be added to Gisèle's food and drink without her noticing it. Dominique filmed or photographed each rape, and kept around 300 videos and pictures on a hard drive in a folder called "Abuses". Investigations showed that the number of rape videos had increased from 2016. Sex toys were sometimes used on Gisèle. In some videos, she appeared to choke when the men thrust their penises into her mouth. Maréchal never went to Mazan, but instead invited Dominique at his home in Drôme. Dominique travelled there a dozen times between 2015 and 2020 to rape Maréchal's wife. On several occasions, he gave Maréchal sedatives for his next visit. Half of their attempts were unsuccessful, because Maréchal had miscalculated the doses. The abuse took a significant toll on Gisèle's health. She lost weight and her hair started to fall out. She experienced memory loss and at times spoke incoherently, to the extent that she worried that she might have Alzheimer's disease or a brain tumor. She only felt better when she was away from Mazan, which never raised her suspicions. One psychiatrist said that Dominique had a split personality that worked like "a partitioned computer disk": "We either have the 'normal Mr Pelicot' or the other Mr Pelicot at night, in the bedroom." == Arrest and investigation ==

Dominique was arrested on 12 September 2020 after he had been apprehended by a security guard for upskirting women using his mobile phone at an E.Leclerc supermarket in Carpentras, near Mazan. He was interviewed by Dr. Laurent Layet, a psychiatrist who was called in to evaluate him. During the interview, Dr. Layet became suspicious of Dominique's casual attitude and how easily he dismissed his crime. Detecting a "dissonance" in his behavior and suspecting that Dominique was hiding something, he told the police that the case should be investigated further. Even after his first arrest, Dominique continued to invite men to rape his wife. The last abuse occurred on 22 October 2020: the man, whose alias was ("the biker"), could not be identified. The videos had been meticulously filed with explicit titles and the names of the men. It took the police two years to identify and locate 52 of the perpetrators; the rest remain unidentified. The men were aged between 21 and 68 at the time of the rapes. Images were also found on Dominique's computer of his daughters-in-law in the shower, which had been taken with a hidden camera, and of his semi-naked daughter Caroline unconscious on a bed as if she had been drugged. == Rearrest and confession ==

Dominique was rearrested on 2 November 2020 and charged with aggravated rape, drugging, and other sexual offences. He was also accused of violating the privacy of his wife, daughter, and two daughters-in-law by covertly taking and disseminating intimate images of them. He immediately admitted his guilt. == Indictment ==

The investigation led to three waves of arrests, in February, March and September 2021. Among the 52 co-perpetrators of Dominique who had been identified, one died shortly before he could be arrested, and another died before the trial. The accused, who faced prison sentences of up to 20 years if found guilty, ranged in age from 25 to 72, are of various ethnicities, and come from numerous walks of life – firefighter, IT worker, journalist, nurse, plumber, prison guard, soldier, and truck driver, with 41 of them being from Vaucluse. Several of them had been abused as children. ==Trial==

The trial, heard by a panel of five judges led by presiding judge Roger Arata, began at the Judicial Court in Avignon on 2 September 2024 and was expected to last until 20 December 2024. At the request of Gisèle, the proceedings were held in public. Eighteen of the accused were detained, while 32 were attending the trial as free men and one was being judged in absentia. The courtroom was specially adapted to accommodate the large number of defendants and about sixty lawyers, with a separate transmission room for the press and public. Gisèle, who was supported in court by her three children and represented by lawyers Stéphane Babonneau and Antoine Camus, testified during the first week of the trial. She explained that her world had fallen apart when the police had told her in November 2020 that she had been drugged and raped. She said, "I was sacrificed on the altar of vice." Her husband affirmed to the court that he was guilty of drugging and raping her. On 10 September 2024, the court heard from Jean-Pierre Maréchal, who admitted to have followed Dominique's instructions on how to drug and rape his own wife, Dominique gave evidence in court for the first time on 17 September. He admitted his guilt, as he had done since his arrest in November 2020, saying "I am a rapist like the others in this room", insisting that all accused knew what they were doing. He asked his family for forgiveness. He recounted his traumatic childhood and his own molestation. He said he had always loved his wife and had felt suicidal when he discovered she had been having an affair. However, he said that he had not abused his wife out of revenge for her past infidelity, The cross examination of the remaining defendants lasted from 19 September to 19 November, with the court taking a week's break at the end of October. The court screened videos of an unconscious Gisèle being raped by the accused. Initially, for reasons of decency, presiding judge Arata had ruled to exclude journalists and members of the public from the screenings. Following arguments from Gisèle's legal team, the judge reversed his decision. Most of the accused denied the charge of rape, saying that they were unaware Gisèle was unconscious and unable to consent. On 19 November, Gisèle took the stand for the last time. "This is a trial of cowardice", she said, adding that it was time to examine a macho patriarchal society that trivialised rape. Whilst admitting that it was her husband who orchestrated the abuse, she asked why not one of the accused had reported him to the police when they saw the state she was in. Defence lawyers suggested that she still felt sympathy for her husband or was under his control; one of them asked why she still used her married name after her divorce, to which she replied that her grandchildren were surnamed Pelicot and she wanted them to be proud of the name that was now known across the world, as it would be associated with her, rather than just her husband. The prosecution delivered their closing arguments on 25–27 November. Seeking a 20-year sentence for Dominique, prosecutor Laure Chabaud said that a 20-year sentence, the maximum sentence for rape under French law, was "both a lot... and too little given the gravity of the acts that were committed and repeated". Chabaud and her fellow prosecutor sought a four-year sentence for one of the accused and sentences of between 10 and 18 years for the others. Chabaud said that such sentences would send a message of hope to all victims of sexual violence. The closing arguments of the defence began on 27 November, with Dominique's lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, the first to speak. She told the court that she had the utmost respect for Gisèle and her family, and asked them to remember the man who at one time had been a devoted family man. In a speech that quoted Sigmund Freud, John Betjeman and Boris Cyrulnik, she argued that childhood trauma had caused a split in Dominique's mind and caused his perversity. Lawyers defending the other 50 accused delivered their closing arguments over the following two-and-a-half weeks. A common theme was the inability of the men to resist in the face of the manipulative behaviour of Dominique. The last lawyer to speak, Nadia El Bouroumi, argued for her clients' acquittal while acknowledging Gisèle's lack of consent, saying they had been manipulated by a monster. She said that it was difficult to speak for the accused when the victim was a feminist hero. On Monday 16 December, the final day of the trial, Dominique was given an opportunity to make a final statement. He acknowledged the courage of his former wife and asked again his family for their forgiveness. The rest of the accused were also allowed to speak; some had nothing to add; some said they were not rapists as they had not intended to rape; some apologised to Gisèle. == Verdicts ==

The judges retired to chambers on the morning of 16 December 2024. They returned to court on the morning of 19 December to deliver the verdicts. Dominique was found guilty of all charges and received the maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, Convicted The following men were convicted: Six of the men, Joseph Cocco, Jacques Cubeau, Saifeddine Ghabi, Hugues Malago, Philippe Leleu and Didier Sambuchi, benefited from probations and time served and did not return to prison. Three, Husamettin Dogan, Abdelali Dallal and Patrick Aron, received deferred warrants of detention due to their health conditions. One, Hassan Ouamou, was sentenced in absentia. Eventually, 16 of the 17 men who had lodged an appeal rescinded it, leaving only one defendant to appear at a second trial. The expected duration of the appeal trial was reduced and it was scheduled to take place between October 6 and 9, 2025. The defendant, Husamettin Dogan, claimed he had been manipulated by Dominique Pelicot into believing that the sex was consensual and Gisèle would only pretend to be asleep; however, videos recorded by Dominique of the incident showed Gisèle visibly unconscious and unresponsive. Dominique, appearing as a witness, testified that Dogan knew she had not consented "from the start". Gisèle Pelicot also testified during the hearing; it was the first time she had seen her husband since the original trial. He said that he would "accept" that sentence and not go to the Court of Cassation. == Impact of the trial ==

Gisèle's decision to waive her right to anonymity and her insistence on a public trial established her as a feminist icon and raised awareness of drug-facilitated sexual assault, rape culture, and the question of consent. Media outlets from around the world covered the trial. Blandine Deverlanges, founder of the group, said: "She has shown such dignity and courage and humanity. It was a huge gift to [French women] that she chose to speak to the whole world in front of her rapist". The BBC included her in its 2024 list of "100 inspiring and influential women from around the world". On 14 September 2024, feminist organisations arranged protests in 30 areas throughout France to express solidarity with Gisèle and other victims of sexual violence, with 700 demonstrators at the Place de la République in Paris and 200 at the Palais de Justice in Marseille. There were further demonstrations in support of Gisèle in Paris, Lyon and other French cities in October. The trial raised issues around consent in French law and the need to revise the criminal code, which defines rape as "any act of sexual penetration committed against another person by violence, constraint, threat or surprise", with no mention of consent. == Other charges against Dominique Pelicot ==

While on remand, Dominique was charged with the rape and murder of 23-year-old estate agent Sophie Narme in Paris in 1991 and with the attempted rape of a 19-year-old estate agent Estella B. in Villeparisis, Seine-et-Marne in 1999. Both women had been showing a man around an apartment when they were attacked. Charges were brought by the cold case unit at Nanterre. Dominique initially denied both crimes but admitted the attempted rape when told that his DNA matched a sample taken at the scene. The woman had been drugged with ether but had managed to fight back and escape. The DNA match had previously been noted when he was arrested for upskirting in Collégien in 2010, but at that time the police failed to pursue the matter. Dominique continued to deny the rape and murder of Sophie Narme; a DNA sample taken from the scene had been lost. == In popular media ==

In 2022, the Pelicots' daughter, who uses the pseudonym Caroline Darian (a combination of the name of her brothers, David and Florian), published a book about the case titled ('And I Stopped Calling You Dad'). She also established a non-profit organisation called ('Don't Sedate Me') to raise awareness of drug-facilitated sexual assault. The book was translated in English in January 2025 under the title ''I'll Never Call Him Dad Again. In that same month Darian recorded an interview with the BBC that was broadcast on January 11 as Pelicot Trial: the Daughter's story. She told Emma Barnett on the Today'' programme that she suspected her father had raped her: "I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don't have any evidence". ITN Productions and Channel 5 released a documentary on the Pelicot case titled The Pelicot Rape Case: A Town on Trial on 11 December 2024 in the UK. Caroline Darian will narrate a documentary made by France Télévisions. In 2025, "Le Procès Pelicot" ("The Pelicot Trial") a play written by Servane Dècle and Milo Rau and directed by Rau follows the trial and includes excerpts from real court documents. A version in Serbian was also played at BITEF in Belgrade in December of the same year. == See also ==