A woman who was allegedly drugged by her ex-husband so she could be raped while unconscious by other men testified Thursday that her world came crashing down when police uncovered years of alleged abuse.
Speaking in a calm, clear voice, Gisèle Pélicot told the court in Avignon, southern France, of the horror of discovering that her ex-partner had been systematically filming alleged rapes by dozens of men – storing thousands of images that police investigators later found.
“It’s unbearable,” she said. “I have so much to say that I don’t always know where to start.”
Dominique Pélicot, now 71, and 50 other men are on trial for rape and face up to 20 years in prison.
The trial began Monday and is expected to last until December. On Thursday, Gisèle Pélicot testified for the first time.
The Associated Press does not generally identify victims of sex crimes.
But Gisèle Pélicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, said she agreed to have her name published in the same way she had insisted that the trial be public.
She told the court she hoped her testimony could help spare other women similar ordeals. She said she pushed for the trial to be held in open court in solidarity with other women who are not recognised as victims of sex crimes.
She and her husband of 50 years lived in their family home in a small town in Provence with their three children before her world came crashing down in late 2020.
“I thought we were a close couple,” she told the court.
But a security guard caught her husband taking pictures of women’s crotches in a supermarket, leading investigators to search Dominique Pélicot’s phone and computer.
They found thousands of photographs and videos of men appearing to rape Gisèle in their home while she appeared unconscious.
Shocked, she left her husband after the police showed her some of the images.
“For me, everything is falling apart,” she said. “These are scenes of barbarity, of rape.”
She left with two suitcases, “all that was left of fifty years of living together.” Since then, she says, “I no longer have an identity.”[…]I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself.
Police investigators have discovered communications that Dominique Pélicot allegedly sent on a messaging site frequently used by criminals, in which he invited men to sexually abuse his wife. The site has been shut down.
Gross details of the alleged abuse, which investigators say began in 2011, and the elaborate system Pélicot ran for 10 years were revealed during the trial.
Men invited to the couple’s home had to follow certain rules: they could not speak loudly, had to take off their clothes in the kitchen, could not wear perfume or smell of tobacco, French media reported.
They sometimes had to wait up to an hour and a half in a nearby parking lot for the drug to take full effect and render Gisèle Pélicot unconscious.
“I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” she testified. “They considered me a rag doll, a garbage bag.”
Thanks to the video of the alleged rapes filmed by Dominique Pélicot, the police were able to find, over a period of two years, the majority of the 72 suspects wanted.
In addition to Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 22 to 70, are on trial. Several of the accused deny some of the charges against them, claiming to have been manipulated by Pélicot.
Over the next few months, the defendants will appear in small groups before a panel of five judges. Judge Pélicot is scheduled to speak next week. Psychologists, psychiatrists and computer experts will also testify.
