FRANCE 24 English published December 20, 2024: 'Verdict shakes French society to its core: Shifting judicial focus on actions of perpetrators'.
A French court has found Dominique Pelicot guilty of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade, and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her unconscious body. For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective on a case that has horrified France and the world, FRANCE 24's Yinka Oyetade welcomes Héma Sibi, Spokesperson for the Mouvement du Nid.
CNN published December 17, 2024: ‘We have to wait at least one hour to abuse her’: CNN reveals shocking evidence in mass rape case.
In a case that’s horrified France and shocked the world, 49 men are accused of raping Gisele Pelicot after her husband, Dominique Pelicot, allegedly drugged her repeatedly and left her unconscious. The abuse took place over nearly 10 years. CNN has gained exclusive access to a police report containing thousands of messages exchanged by Pelicot and the accused in chatrooms, on Skype and over text, revealing how the alleged crimes could have happened. While the website that Pelicot used to allegedly organize the abuse has been shut down, a CNN investigation has uncovered new forums where rape and sexual abuse are still actively discussed.
CBS News published December 18, 2024: How a French woman found out her husband, strangers were abusing her. A French woman learned that her husband and more than 50 men had been raping her for years while she was drugged. A verdict will soon be reached in her case. Catherine Porter, an international correspondent for The New York Times, joins CBS News with more.
The New York Times
written by Ségolène Le Stradic and Catherine Porter
Thursday December 19, 2024
Dominique Pelicot, who admitted to drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade and inviting dozens of strangers to join him, was convicted on Thursday of aggravated rape and other charges and sentenced to the maximum 20 years in prison.
The court also convicted the 50 other defendants, most of them on rape charges.
The monthslong case has riveted and stunned France. It also transformed how the nation discusses sexual violence and made Ms. Pelicot, who has since divorced her husband, a feminist hero for pushing to make the trial public.
Here’s what to know about the trial.
What is the case about?
Dominique Pelicot, 72, is a retired real estate agent and salesman who until his arrest lived in Mazan, a city in southeastern France with a population of 6,300.
In 2020, police began investigating Mr. Pelicot after three women reported him trying to film up their skirts in a supermarket. During the investigation, they found many thousands of photographs and videos of rapes and sexual abuse on his computer and other electronic devices.
Many of the videos and photos showed Ms. Pelicot unconscious, being sexually penetrated by dozens of men. A couple of pictures showed their daughter Caroline sleeping. She said she does not own the lingerie she was wearing in the pictures, and that she never sleeps in that position. The couple’s daughter-in-law and former daughter-in-law also appeared on a handful of pictures taken without their knowledge while undressing in the bathroom. The three women were also plaintiffs in the trial, and Mr. Pelicot was additionally convicted of taking and distributing their photographs.
The police charged Mr. Pelicot in November 2020 and spent almost two years identifying and charging the other men involved in the rapes.
In court, most of the men accused said that they had met Mr. Pelicot on a website implicated in more than 23,000 police cases in France from 2021 to 2024. The chat site has since been shut down by the French authorities.
What were the various sentences?
Most of the other defendants received sentences of eight to 10 years, less than the 10- to 18-year terms that the public prosecutor had recommended.
Here are some of the others convicted:
Jean-Pierre Maréchal: He pleaded guilty not to violating Ms. Pelicot, but to following Dominique Pelicot’s blueprint and drugging and raping his own wife — and inviting Mr. Pelicot along. Mr. Maréchal was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The prosecutor had recommended 17. (Mr. Pelicot was also convicted of raping Mr. Maréchal’s wife.) Mr. Maréchal’s lawyer, Paul Gontard, said after the sentencing that he did not intend to file an appeal.
Charly Arbo: A laborer at a cement company, he was among the youngest accused, and was sentenced to 13 years. Mr. Arbo was 22 when he first went to the Pelicots’ home in 2016. While most of the men said that they had gone to the home once, Mr. Arbo went six times.
Joseph Cocco: Mr. Cocco, a retired manager of a beer company subsidiary, was convicted on a lesser charge of aggravated sexual assault. He was among the few defendants who asked Ms. Pelicot for forgiveness. He was sentenced to four years.
The longest sentence apart from Dominique Pelicot’s was 15 years, for a man who went to the couple’s house six times and did not use a condom despite knowing that he was H.I.V. positive.
Some of the men will go free because of time already served.
Who are the others convicted in the rape trial?
The French news media have labeled the 50 other defendants “Monsieur Tout-le-monde,” or “Mr. Every Man,” because of how varied and ordinary they appear — short, tall, flabby, lean, cleanshaven, bearded, bald, ponytailed. All but 14 were employed, in jobs that reflect the spectrum of middle- and working-class rural France: truck drivers, carpenters and trade workers, a prison guard, a nurse, an I.T. expert working for a bank, a local journalist.
How did Gisèle Pelicot find out she was raped?
For years, Ms. Pelicot had been losing hair and weight. She had started forgetting whole days, and sometimes appeared to be in dreamlike trances. Her children and friends worried she had Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor.
But in late 2020, after she was summoned to a police station in southern France, she learned a shattering story: Her husband of 50 years had secretly been drugging her into a deep sleep, the police said, and then raping her along with dozens of men he had invited into the couple’s home, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade.
Ms. Pelicot, who has divorced her husband but used her former married name during the trial, is now 72. Feminist activists and writers have lauded her courage, strength, and dignity in confronting her horrifying experience. They have also praised her rare decision to fling open the court’s doors onto her intimate hell and insist that the trial be made public, when it could have stayed private.
She also insisted that the grim videos her husband took of those encounters be played publicly as irrefutable proof. She stayed in the courtroom while the videos were shown, revealing the men, sitting on benches nearby, touching her inert body and engaging in sexual acts, while her husband encouraged them.
“It was difficult for me to make the decision to broadcast these videos, but it was also a way of finding out the truth,” she told the court in October. One of her lawyers, Antoine Camus, said the country needed “to look rape straight in the eyes.”
How has the case changed France?
The trial has sent shock waves through France, prompting debates about the legal definition of rape, the notion of consent, and drugging someone against their will — called “chemical submission” in France.
News from the Avignon courthouse has appeared in national and international media constantly since September, with more than 180 news organizations signed up to attend. Domestically, feminists and politicians alike have used the trial to speak out against violence against women and the prevalence of rape culture.
The case has also widened perceptions of who might commit sexual crimes. “Sexual offenders are often imagined as being dysfunctional misfits, when, in reality, they are Mr. Everyman,” said Audrey Darsonville, a professor of criminal law at the University of Nanterre and an expert on rape. “That’s what this trial reminds us.”
Who judged the trial?
The trial took place before five professional judges.
Following a law passed in 2019, regional criminal courts adjudicate the trials of crimes that are punishable by 15 to 20 years, such as rape or robbery. To speed up the proceedings, these courts use only magistrates, not juries. In these criminal courts, all decisions, including verdicts, are taken by a simple majority vote.
Where are the photographs of Mr. Pelicot?
During the trial, the court prohibited taking any photographs of victims or of accused people in the courthouse without their written consent. Photographs said to be of some of the men outside the court emerged today, but they had covered their heads and faces with hoods, caps and face masks.
Ms. Pelicot and her children have given their consent through their lawyers, which is why they appear in photographs from court.
A “perp walk” for defendants is not customary in France, where it would be considered harmful to preserving the presumption of innocence of the accused. The French media have largely abstained from giving the last names of the men, apart from Mr. Pelicot, in keeping with French tradition.
What happens after the trial?
The verdicts in the trial do not necessarily mean that it is the end of the case. Some of the accused intend to appeal no matter the verdict and the sentence. If they do so, a new trial would be held within a year, this time with three professional judges and a nine-person jury.
Dominique Pelicot is also being investigated in the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in 1991 and in the attempted rape of a 19-year-old in 1999. He has admitted to the attempted rape but denies any involvement in the 1991 homicide. No trial date has been set.
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