The Pellicott Trial: What You Need to Know About the Gang Rape Trial

Judges in the French city of Avignon have sentenced Dominique Pellicote to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping his then-wife Giselle Pellicote and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her. .

Dominic was accused along with 50 other men. Of the 50 co-defendants found guilty, 46 were convicted of rape, two were convicted of attempted rape, and two were convicted of sexual assault.

For nearly a decade, Gisèle Pelicot was unknowingly sedated by her ex-husband, who confessed to raping her and recruiting men online whom she met in their bed at home. was recruited to have sex with her while she was unconscious and unaware.

Although Dominique Pellicote admitted the charges against him, most of the other men at trial denied that what they had done was rape.

It was Gisèle’s decision to remain anonymous and throw the case into the open – in her words, “switching sides of shame” from victim to rapist – that made the 72-year-old a feminist icon. .

Dominique was also found guilty of attempting to rape the wife of a co-accused, Jean-Pierre Marichal – who admitted drugging and raping his own wife, Celia, and Dominique as well. Invited to rape.

Marichal was found guilty of attempted rape and aggravated rape.

Dominic Pellicote was further convicted of taking indecent photographs of his daughter, Caroline, and his daughters-in-law, Aurora and Celine.

“I’m a rapist,” he previously told jurors. “I accept all the facts. [of the case] He begged forgiveness from his ex-wife and three children, but his actions tore the Pellicott family apart.

Prosecutors had sought prison terms of four to 20 years for the defendants, the maximum sentence for aggravated assault.

One of the defendants, who has pleaded guilty to the charges, called earlier. The trial was swift and “false.”

Campaigners said the case proved the need for consent in France’s rape laws, as in other European countries.

From 2011 to 2020, Dominique Pellicote administered sedatives and sleeping pills to his wife without her knowledge, crushing them into powder and adding them to her food and drink.

Gisèle Pelicot suffered from drug-induced memory loss and blackouts and recounted the 10 years of her life that had been wasted.

He was eventually caught after a security guard reported him to the police for taking pictures up women’s skirts in a supermarket.

“I thought we were a close couple,” she once told the court. Instead, her husband was visiting a notorious but now banned website called Coco.fr to invite local men to his home to have sex with her while she was unconscious.

“I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” Gisèle Pelicot said at the start of the trial.

Since the beginning of September, Judge Roger Arata and his four colleagues have heard how 50 men, now aged between 27 and 74, went to Pellicotes’ home in the village of Mazan.

While Dominic Pellicote received the maximum sentence, the prison terms for the other men were mostly for less than the years prosecutors had sought.

Gisèle Pelicot’s children said in a statement that they were disappointed by the lesser sentences given to the defendants.

According to the French Ministry of Justice, the average sentence for rape in France is 11.1 years.

The other defendants come from all walks of life and most of them are from a 50 km (30 mi) radius of Pelikots village in Mizan. The fact that he is a firefighter, security guard and lorry driver, he is named Monsieur-tout-le-Monde (Mr. Everyman). Most of them also have children.

Romain Vandevelde, 63, was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot on six separate occasions while he knew she was HIV positive. His lawyer said he could not have passed the infection because he had been under treatment for years.

Ahead of the verdicts, one of the few men who has admitted rape told the BBC through his daughter that many had made up their minds straight away: “There wasn’t enough time. For me it was It was a mistake.”

Joseph Cocco, 69, a retired sports coach and grandfather, was recommended the lightest sentence of four years in prison on the felony charge of sexual assault. He was sentenced to three years.

Some of them have apologized for their behavior, but many have not.

Cyril Beaubes said he apologized to Giselle Pellicote.

“I’m ashamed of myself, I’m disgusted,” Jean-Pierre Marichal said this week. His lawyer hoped the judge would take his grievances into account.

Not only has the case been made public, but the evidence against all the accused was recorded on video by Dominique Pellicote at the time and then played in court.

Gisèle Pelicot, who is divorced from her husband, said the men “treated me like a rag doll”. “Don’t talk to me about the sex scenes. They’re rape scenes,” she said.

So none. Those accused have been able to challenge the allegation that they were in Gisèle Pelicot’s room while she was unconscious.

Their defense relies on the definition of rape, as it currently includes any type of sexual penetration “by violence, coercion, threat, or surprise.” This meant that the prosecution needed to prove intent to commit rape.

Public prosecutor Lore Chabaud told the court that no one could any longer say that “because he didn’t say anything, he gave his consent – which belongs to the past”.

Thousands of people have joined protests in France in support of Gisèle Pelicot. Every day, the women stand outside the courthouse chanting a phrase from their lawyers: “Shame on them for changing sides.”

When she arrived at the court in Avignon on Thursday morning, she was met by a cheering crowd of supporters and international media. Her supporters stood outside after the verdict was announced – chanting “On behalf of all the women of the world, we thank you”.

Gisèle Pelicot has been attending the trial almost every day, appearing in court in her sunglasses before nine o’clock.

Her decision to remain anonymous is highly unusual, but she persevered throughout. “I want all women who have been raped to say: Madam Pellicote did it, I can do it too.”

But he’s clear that behind his facade of strength “is a field of ruins” and despite widespread admiration for what he’s done, he’s a reluctant hero.

“She keeps repeating, ‘I’m normal,’ she doesn’t want to be seen as an icon,” her lawyer Stephen Baboneau told the BBC’s Emma Barnett.

“Women usually have strengths that they can’t even imagine and they have to trust themselves. That’s her message.”

51 Lawyers for the defendants emphasized their normal lives, although court-appointed psychiatrist Laurent Liet testified that they were neither normal nor “monsters.”

In the early weeks of the trial, the mayor of the village of Mazan told the BBC that the case could have been far more serious because no one died.

But the remarks caused an uproar across France and the mayor quickly apologized. After that he has said that he is staying away from public life.

The fact that the trial was held in public meant that each session was reported at length and in detail.

Elsa Liebert of the Dare to Be Feminist activist group told the BBC:[Gisèle Pelicot] Decided to make him bigger than himself. To make the point that we as a society behave sexually violently.”