The trial of a horrifying case opened at Avignon’s Court on Monday, September 2nd. A man is on trial for drugging his wife for ten years and subjecting her, without her knowledge, to rape by dozens of strangers. The ordeal endured by this woman for so many years raises many questions.
The crime committed by Dominique Pélicot, a retired man, now aged 71, was only discovered by chance. In September 2020, the man was arrested for filming under the skirts of women in a supermarket. During a search of his home, the police were horrified to discover material on his computer that revealed the profile of a man guilty of a decade of horrific crimes. For ten years, he drugged his wife with powerful anti-anxiety drugs, then handed her over to rapists recruited online, whom he filmed in action. He then kept the videos of these unspeakable visits, duly catalogued.
Over a ten-year period, between 2011 and 2020, Gisèle was raped 92 times, the investigators established. Some of the perpetrators visited the couple’s home several times. All will be tried for ‘aggravated rape.’ In all, 73 perpetrators were counted, 51 of whom have been identified. An extraordinary trial thus opened on Monday, September 2nd, pitting a single victim, Gisèle Pélicot, against 51 men who abused her without her ever being aware of it. For many of them, the line of defence is that they did not know that their prey was unconscious, and that it was simply a ‘game,’ a consensual ‘fantasy’ between husband and wife.
The trial should initially have been held behind closed doors, but the victim courageously refused and asked for the proceedings to be held in public. It’s time for “shame to change sides,” argued her lawyer. Gisèle Pélicot has the support of her three children, especially her daughter, who wants to draw attention to the tragedies of the ‘chemical submission’ of which her mother was a victim, and which is not an isolated case, she says.
The violence of the statement of facts nonetheless remains an ordeal for the family, and on the first day of the trial, the victim’s daughter had to leave the hearing, unable to bear the details.
Many grey areas will have to be explored as the trial progresses. How could the Health Insurance have permitted Dominique Pélicot such large quantities of anti-anxiety medications without being suspicious (more than 450 pills a year)? How could Gisèle’s doctor have remained so passive in the face of her health problems: profound memory lapses and repeated fainting spells due to overuse of tranquillisers and a serious inflammation of the cervix, caused by no fewer than four undiagnosed sexually transmitted infections?
The press is quick to point out the great diversity of rapists—a lorry driver, a fireman, a factory worker, a nurse, a contractor, a soldier, a journalist, or even a plumber—making it possible to assert that rapists are “just anybody,” and that there is no such thing as a typical rapist profile. For some feminists interviewed in the media, this is proof that the over-representation of foreigners among perpetrators of sexual assault is a myth. But there is another element, revealed when Dominique Pénicot was indicted two years ago, which has now been swept under the carpet: the man admitted at the time that he had knowingly handed his wife over to men of various races to “cure her of her racism.” “My wife was racist, but I wasn’t, so I had a black man come, an Arab man… Seeing her with the opposite of her turned me on even more,” he told the experts at the time.
The trial is due to last until December. The defendants face up to twenty years’ imprisonment.
