The Start of a Nightmare
Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot were the ideal couple. They met when they were 19 and 21, and were happily married for 50 years. Gisèle considered Dominique to be the love of her life, as she stated, “I thought we were a strong and happy couple.” She added, “We had everything to be happy.” The couple had three children and seven grandchildren, had overcome their financial struggles together, and would regularly go on vacations together. “Even our friends said we were the ideal couple,” the 71-year-old woman stated in one of her court appearances.
Dominique Pelicot had been playing the role of a devoted husband for years, especially after they had retired to the commune of Mazan in southeastern France in 2013, where his wife had mysteriously fallen ill– she was losing a worrying amount of weight, chunks of her hair were falling out, and she was experiencing significant gaps in her memory or “total blackouts” as she called them. It was her ‘devoted’ husband Dominique who took her to see and consult various doctors about her condition. Gisèle testified that she had been made to believe she had beginnings of Alzheimer’s or an unknown brain tumor. It’s only now that the disturbing truth behind her declining health has been revealed. Gisèle was unknowingly being given crushed sleeping pills inside her food and drinks by her husband for years.
According to investigators, when Gisèle passed out, Dominique would invite strangers into their home for them to rape his unconscious wife, where he would either watch as the horrible acts took place or join in himself. Dominique Pelicot had allegedly been finding these men via a forum named ‘without her knowing (à son insu)’ on the no longer existing website coco.gg. The said website had already been involved in thousands of police investigations as it allowed offenders to coordinate child sexual abuse, rapes, homicides, and other serious crimes before French authorities shut ‘the den of predators’ down in June. Beginning more than a decade ago, around 2011, it is believed that Dominique Pelicot has since arranged close to 200 rapes, recruiting more than 90 men this way. Dominique allegedly subjected the offenders to certain ground rules he had established. The procedure required them to come into the home once Dominique had drugged Gisèle and she had lost consciousness. They had to speak quietly to not wake her up. To avoid any resulting suspicions, they were not allowed to wear perfume or come into the house smelling of tobacco smoke, and all their clothes had to be removed in the kitchen.
In his court appearance, Dominique Pelicot admitted to the charges he faced. His lawyer stated after his arrest that Dominique “always declared himself guilty.” Dominique himself also admitted, stating, “I put her to sleep, I offered her to them, and I filmed her.” He seemingly revealed to the police that he started drugging his wife to make her wear certain clothes and engage in acts she wouldn’t while awake, he insisted he never took money from the men he invited over to rape his wife. Gisèle, who now refers to her husband only as ‘Monsieur Pelicot,’ described her side on the impact of the crimes. “I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” and “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag," she testified. She stated that the most accurate word she can find to describe her husband’s crimes is ‘torture.’
How The Crime Was Uncovered
In 2020, Dominique Pelicot was caught by a security guard in a grocery store while attempting to take upskirt pictures of several women, which ultimately led to his detainment. The scale of his crimes was revealed to heighten from there as the authorities found 300 photographs and videos of several men sexually assaulting a headless woman on his device. They later uncovered around 20,000 photographs of the countless sexual assault acts against the headless woman, who turned out to be his wife of 50 years, Gisèle Pelicot. Dominique’s digital footprint also revealed his diligent records of the rapes: the messages he had sent to the men he enlisted in which he “bragged about drugging his wife” and his careful organization of the photos in a file on his computer he simply labeled ‘abuse,’ where he added dates and file names to most of the footage.
Unfortunately, Gisèle Pelicot wasn’t the only victim of Dominique’s disturbing crimes. It has been reported that he kept a file named, ‘Around my daughter, naked’ which contained similar photographs to Gisèle’s of his daughter– who published a memoir on her father's crimes, Et j’ai cessé de t’appeler papa (And I stopped calling you dad), which she published in 2022 under the pen name Caroline Darian. He had also taken stealthy photos of his daughters-in-law in a naked state despite their lack of knowledge and consent.
When the authorities first called Gisèle Pelicot to the police station, she initially defended her husband, stating he was a “great guy.” That was, until they showed her the archives of the thousand photographs, evidencing his true nature and horrifying acts. Gisèle said in court, “For me, everything collapsed.” and “These are scenes of barbarity, of rape.”
She left the police station, packed “all that was left for her of 50 years of life together” into two suitcases, and immediately filed a divorce from her assaulter. Ensuing medical tests revealed she had multiple STIs as a result of the rapes. When talking about the crime committed against her, she stated, “I no longer have an identity.” and “I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself.” Since then, she changed her surname but is still going by Pelicot during the trial.
In addition to the charges involving his multiple family members, Dominique is also currently under investigation for two sexually motivated crimes that occurred in the 1990s: the rape and murder of a 23-year-old in 1991, which he insistently denies, and the attempted rape of a 19-year-old in 1999, to which he has now admitted.
The Other Men On Trial
Besides Dominique, the French police have identified 50 other men that are currently being accused of raping Gisèle throughout the years. The suspects' ages ranged from 26 all the way up to 74, and they worked as IT consultants, plumbers, nurses, journalists, and more. Some claimed that they didn’t know she had been drugged and that Dominique had deceived them by promising a threesome with his consenting wife. Gisèle does not believe these claims, as she told the court, “They knew exactly what they were doing and what shape I was in.” She says she even recognized one of the men, a man who’d visited their home to talk about cycling with her husband, or so she was made to believe. “When I saw him now and then in the bakery, I would say hello,” she recalled in court. “I never thought he’d come and rape me.” Most of the defendants have been charged with aggravated rape and face up to 20 years if convicted. One of the men is also currently being accused of having reproduced Dominique’s rape methods on his own wife and inviting other men, one being Dominique himself, to sexually assault her in an unconscious state.
What Dominique Said During His Testimony
Dominique was originally set to testify during the second week of the trial, but due to a kidney infection with several concurrent ailments, his testimony was delayed until September 17. When addressing the court, he once again admitted to his crimes and restated his guilt. He stated that his sex addiction was the reason for his scheme, and it was simply too strong to give it up. He also highlighted his perpetual remorse, saying, “She didn’t deserve this.” and “I regret what I did, and I ask for forgiveness, even if it was unforgivable.”
His testimony also answered accusations coming from the other defendants of the case that he “totally duped, fooled, tricked and trapped” some of those who participated in the rapes. He testified, “Today I maintain that I am a rapist, like those in this room,” continuing with, “They all knew her condition before they came, they knew everything. They cannot say otherwise.” He also stated that the men had come to him of their own volition and that he did not, in fact, force or trap anyone to engage in the act. He added that besides the ‘ground rules mentioned above that he set for the men, he also asked them to bring their medical test results and condoms but would still let them if they neglected to do so.
Dominique then looked back on the abuse he experienced in his youth to search for a reason for his disturbed acts, claiming he was sexually assaulted at the age of nine and forced to witness a rape at age 14. He also noted that it was Gisèle who pulled him out of the traumatized state and that he was happy with her during their marriage. “I’m crazy about her,” he said and added, “Even if it’s paradoxical, I never thought of my wife as an object.” Stating that “a person isn’t born perverted, they become perverted,”, he reasoned that his meticulous labeling of the footage was “perversion, vice, but it was also an outstanding means of helping him remember certain people.” Because of his recordings, he claimed, “we could find all those who participated.”
Although Dominique did not deny the allegations of sexually assaulting his wife, he did reject drugging or raping his daughter, and he absolutely denied ever acting inappropriately with his grandchildren– a concern that rose among the media and his daughter-in-law Céline Pelicot. “When you suffered as a child what I suffered, you are not at all tempted by that kind of thing,” he told the court. “I have never touched a child. I would never touch one.”
When Dominique rejected having taken photos of his daughter unconscious in her underwear, Darian interjected from the bench, “You’re lying!” Listening to her husband/assaulter’s testimony, Gisèle Pelicot was allowed to respond, where she said, “For 50 years, I lived with a man whom I wouldn’t have imagined for a single second could do these things. I had total confidence in this man.”
What The Other Assaulters Said In Their Testimonies
After Dominique testified, the court began calling the men he allegedly recruited, who were made to come up to the stand in small groups. The first defendant was Jean-Pierre Marechal, who wasn’t accused of raping Gisèle but has been imprisoned for replicating Dominique’s rape method on his own wife, Cilia. Marechal expressed during the court that he first met Dominique on coco.gg, where Dominique explained his scheme in detail and, eventually, asked if he could rape Cilia. The 63-year-old man didn’t immediately accept the perverted request but claimed that Dominique coaxed him into it. “If I had not met Mr. Pelicot, I would have never committed this act. He was reassuring, like a cousin,” he said in his testimony. Dominique allegedly supplied the tranquilizers and is accused of raping Cilia ten times while Marechal watched, who is also accused of raping or attempting to rape, Cilia on 12 other occasions. During their final meeting, Cilia reportedly gained consciousness while Dominique was still in the room, resulting in the two men stopping communication with one another.
Similar to Dominique, Marechal told the court he’d been sexually abused as a child, stating, “We experienced terrible things from my father” and “My mother tried to protect us, but she drank.” Like Dominique, Marechal also insisted he’d had a “satisfactory life” with Cilia, who did not divorce him. He told the court, “I regret my actions. I love my wife,” adding that he hoped for a “severe punishment.” “I’m in jail, and I deserve it,” he said. “What I did is appalling. I’m a criminal and a rapist.”
After Marechal, the court heard from several other defendants. Lionel R., a 44-year-old father of three, and Ex-fireman Jacques C, who is 74, both testified that they had met Dominique on coco.gg and had been “persuaded” by his interesting request. They claimed they either did not understand the sinister nature of the situation or that they failed to comprehend what the consequences of their actions would be. The 74-year-old went as far as to claim that he “has the deepest respect for women” and then proceeded to say he “became aware that potentially he was abusing her but was a bit slow in catching on.” He concludes to deny raping Gisèle. The 44-year-old admits his guilt and stated, “I’m guilty of rape,” before apologizing to Gisèle. “I can only imagine the nightmare you’ve lived through,” he said, “and I am part of this nightmare. I know my apologies won’t change what happened, but I wanted to tell you that.”
“There are no different types of rape,” Gisèle countered to the defendants lawyers’ claims that since the men weren’t completely aware there was a lack of consent, it couldn’t technically be classified as rape. “Rape is rape,” she said. These “degenerates” could’ve checked with her, she noted, but they chose not to.
As the first group of her alleged abusers took the stand, Gisèle told the court that she felt “humiliated” by the process. But she refused to have the trial be done behind closed doors in order to highlight the fact that victims of sexual assault have nothing to be ashamed of and should not be afraid of speaking out. Her bravery and composure throughout the process would make her the symbol of the fight against sexual violence.
The trial began on September 3rd and is expected to last until December. The groups of defendants will continue to be tried together before a panel of judges.
Edited by: Ömer Gökce, Oya Yamaç