A French judge on Thursday found the former husband of Gisèle Pelicot, who admitted to have drugged and raped her repeatedly for almost a decade and to having invited dozens of other men to attack her as well, guilty of aggravated rape. He was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison.
During the trial, Pelicot – who insisted that his full name be published and that the court the debates are made public — was praised for her courage and became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France and around the world.
“I would like to express my very deep gratitude to all the people who supported me during this difficult period. Your testimony, your statements really moved me and they gave me the strength to come back every day for these long days of the trial,” Pelicot told reporters outside court Thursday.
“I wanted to open the doors of this trial last September so that society could see what was happening. I will never regret this decision. I have confidence in our ability, collectively, to find a better future, in which men and women can live together harmlessly and with mutual respect,” she said.
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Roger Arata, senior judge at the court in Avignon, southeastern France, also read the verdicts of 49 other men accused of raping Pelicot alongside her ex-husband, at her invitation, and another charged with aggravated sexual assault. All the men were found guilty, but one had his conviction reduced from rape to sexual assault. They were all sentenced to sentences ranging from three to fifteen years, two of which were suspended.
“The children are disappointed by these weak sentences,” a member of Pélicot’s family, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
Pelicot was greeted upon her arrival at court Thursday by a crowd holding signs with slogans such as: “Thank you for your courage.” She and her daughters sat in the courtroom as the verdicts were read, their heads leaning against a wall, CBS News partner network BBC News reported.
The trial began on September 2 and, almost every day, Pélicot found himself face to face with her. former husbandDominique, or one of the 50 other men accused of attacking her. She insisted that videos submitted as evidence, made by her ex-husband and showing men assaulting her while she appeared unconscious, be shown in court.
Dominique Pelicot was also found guilty of attempted aggravated rape of a woman named Cillia, wife of another man, Jean Pierre Maréchal, who was one of the co-accused, as well as taking indecent images of his daughter Caroline and of his daughter. daughters-in-law, Céline and Aurore, BBC News reported. Sitting in court, he showed no emotion as the verdicts were read, according to the BBC. After the verdict and sentencing, his lawyer said he would have ten days to appeal, which he was considering.
The attacks took place between 2011 and 2020, when Dominique Pelicot was taken into police custody. Police found thousands of photos and videos of the abuse on his computer disks, which led to other suspects. Some of the men testified in court that they believed the unconscious woman agreed to this, or that her husband’s permission was sufficient.
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“It’s not ours to be ashamed of, it’s theirs,” Pélicot said during the trial, referring to the attackers. “Above all, I express my will and my determination to change this society.”
Pelicot continued to attend hearings throughout the trial, in part because she “felt like she was somehow representing the victims of this kind of abuse,” said her lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, before the verdicts are pronounced Thursday. “There are many, many victims who go to trial, confronting their attackers with no one outside, lining up for them, offering flowers. So she felt like she had to continue to stay focused, because she didn’t choose to do it, but she felt like she was representing the victims in some way, and she felt responsible for that.”
Controversial French laws
The Pelicot case sparked protests across France, and some demonstrators hoped the case could lead to changes in France’s controversial laws governing sexual consent.
France introduced a legal age of sexual consent in 2021 after public outcry over the rape of an 11-year-old schoolgirl by a man initially convicted of a lesser charge. Since then, sex with anyone under 15 has been considered non-consensual, but French law does not refer to consent in cases involving older victims.
In French law, rape is defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise,” without regard to consent, according to the Reuters news agency. Prosecutors must therefore prove intent to rape if they are to succeed in court, legal experts told Reuters.
Only 14% of rape accusations in France give rise to formal investigations, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute.
“Why can’t we get convictions? The first reason is the law,” French lawyer Catherine Le Magueresse told Reuters. “The law is written in such a way that victims must conform to the stereotype of the ‘good victim’ and ‘real rape’: unknown attacker, use of violence and resistance from the victim. But this is only true for a minority of rapes.
“I’m trying to understand.”
Speaking in court during the trial, Pelicot, 72, said she thought she was in a loving marriage with her husband and would never have guessed what was happening.
“We had a glass of white wine together. I never found anything strange about my potatoes,” Pélicot told the court. “We finished eating. Often, when it was a football game on TV, I let him watch it alone. He brought my ice cream to my bed, where I was. My favorite flavor – raspberry – and I said to myself: “How lucky I am. It’s a love.'”
She said she had no feeling of being drugged.
“I never felt my heart beat. I didn’t feel anything. I must have fallen asleep very quickly. I woke up in my pajamas,” Pélicot told the court, adding that she sometimes woke up “more tired than usually”. , but I walk a lot and I thought that was it
“I’m trying to understand,” she said, “how this husband, who was the perfect man, could have gotten to this point.”
“Nothing will give her back the 15 years she lost, the 10 years she lived without knowing what was happening to her,” said Pélicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, before the verdicts Thursday. “All she can expect now is justice to be served, and then, well, who could find comfort in someone going to prison for 10, 15 years, seeing another family destroyed. Nobody – and, in fact – certainly not her.
Frank Andrews contributed to this report.
