A man in France is on trial after being accused of drugging his wife and letting dozens of men to sexually attack her for nearly a decade. The shocking case involving Dominique Pélicot, 71, and his wife Gisèle, 72, has sparked broad attention because of its disturbing details.
On Monday, September 2, the trial began in Avignon, where Pélicot is accused of arranging many assaults. According to the French newspaper Le Parisien, Pélicot allegedly asked other men, including firefighters and journalists, to rape his wife while she was asleep.
As it stands now, these males, who are now aged 26 to 73, are also on trial.
The case was brought to light in 2020, when police began examining allegations that Pélicot had slipped sleeping drugs in his wife’s food and drinks. Pélicot is accused of inviting the men to abuse his sedated wife.
According to The New York Times, the inquiry lasted two years, during which time authorities tracked down the suspects and discovered almost 20,000 recordings and images relating to the crimes. The assaults are believed to have begun around 2011.
While 51 men are officially going to trial, reports state that 83 men have allegedly committed 92 rapes over the years. Police discovered the crimes after investigating Pélicot for reportedly filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket. This led to a raid on the couple’s home in Mazan, where evidence of the assaults was found.
Gisèle, who had been suffering from memory loss and physical problems, learnt about the assaults only when police notified her. She has recently decided to make the trial public in order to raise awareness about the awful incidents she experienced.
According to one of her lawyers, Stéphane Babonneau, “She wants to raise awareness, as widely as possible, of what happened to her so that events like these never happen again.”
Pélicot has not contested the charges and has “always declared himself guilty,” according to his lawyer Béatrice Zavarro. However, some of the men accused have denied the charges, claiming they had permission from Pélicot, or that they believed Gisèle had agreed to be drugged.
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Gisèle, who had been married to Pélicot for 40 years and has three children and two grandchildren with him, is now in the process of divorcing him. Their daughter, Caroline Darian, published a book in 2022 titled And I Stopped Calling You Papa, detailing the case against her father.
Pélicot is also under investigation for other violent crimes, such as the rape and death of a 23-year-old woman in 1991 and the attempted rape of a 19-year-old in 1999. While he admits to the attempted rape, he denied involvement in the murder.
The end result of the trial is unknown, but the case has already aroused considerable outrage and calls for justice from both the general public and activist groups.
