‘Clearly snoring’: Horror detail in video of Gisele Pelicot’s alleged rape

It’s the rape trial which has horrified the world, and now, footage has emerged inside court that has shaken everyone.

WARNING: Confronting

Gisele Pelicot could be heard “snoring” while she was allegedly raped by one of more than 50 men at the invitation of her husband, graphic footage of the alleged attack has shown.

The 72-year-old French woman bravely insisted that the hours of videos documenting the alleged assaults – recorded and kept by Dominique Pelicot on a hard drive labelled “abuse” – be screened to the public in court so that they may “look the rape straight in the eye”.

Dominique, 71, has admitted to repeatedly drugging his ex-wife, crushing powerful sleeping pills into her food and drinks to render her unconscious, then soliciting dozens of strangers to assault her.

Ms Pelicot previously told the court in Avignon she had been treated “like a rag doll, like a garbage bag”, not only by her husband, but by the many men he recruited online between 2011 and 2020 to come to their home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France, and rape his wife while she lay “comatose”.

In one tape, shown on Thursday local time, “in near silence, a short, pale man wearing only blue underpants and black socks, could be seen approaching a bed”, the BBC reports.

“The camera wobbled as it followed him. Behind the man, a woman lay on her left side, almost naked, on a crumpled white sheet. And then, without edits, without any blurring, the sex acts began,” the report continued.

Many of the men who accepted Dominique’s invitation have insisted they did not believe what they were doing was rape.

Yet “at times, later in the video, you could clearly hear the woman snoring”.

A court sketch shows Gisele Pelicot and her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, covering his face, during the viewing of footage of her alleged sexual assault. Picture: Benoit Peyrucq/AFP

Reporters attending the trial said that in response to the footage – screened on three “large” televisions, each mounted on a separate wall – Dominique raised his “left hand … to block his view of the screen” and “appeared to place both hands over his ears”.

Several of his co-defendants either watched themselves on the screen or “stared at the floor”.

Present in the courtroom herself, Ms Pelicot looked at her telephone during the playing of the nine videos.

Judge Roger Arata reversed the decision to keep the screenings behind closed doors after Ms Pelicot’s lawyers requested members of the public be allowed to be present while they were shown.

They were screened to challenge testimonies from some of the accused that they were unaware the victim was unconscious.

After the images were shown on Friday, however, most stuck to their defence. They had earlier said they had thought they were taking part in a sex game.

After the screenings, one said he had “no memory” of the event. Another said he was “terrorised” by Dominique even if it “doesn’t look like it” in the images.

A third said he had not heard Ms Pelicot snoring or had “hoped she would wake up at the end”.

Gisele Pelicot. Picture: Christophe Simon/AFP

Her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot. Picture: Supplied

Judge Arata ruled that the screening of video evidence would “not be systematic” and would occur only when “strictly necessary for exposing the truth”, and at the request of one of the parties.

Ms Pelicot’s lawyer Stephane Babonneau said the ruling was a “victory” but “a victory in a fight that should not have been fought”.

Pelicot’s willingness to highlight her suffering has won widespread praise and made her a feminist icon in France.

“For Gisele Pelicot, it is too late. The harm is done,” Mr Babonneau said.

“But if these same hearings, through being publicised, help prevent other women from having to go through this, then she will find meaning in her suffering.”

This court sketch created on October 10 shows multiple portraits of Ms Pelicot during the trial. Picture: Benoit Peyrucq/AFP

A court sketch from the trial on October 8. Picture: Benoit Peyrucq/AFP

Some lawyers for the other 50 accused opposed the screening of video evidence.

“Justice does not need that in order to proceed. What is the point of these revolting screenings?” said lawyer Olivier Lantelme.

But for Antoine Camus, another lawyer in Ms Pelicot’s team, the videos “cause the argument of accidental rape to collapse”.

“It was in reality a question of hatred of women,” he said.

Each defendant “contributed in their own small way to this banality of rape, to this banality of evil”, he said.

The trial is scheduled to last until December.