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French man stands trial accused of orchestrating dozens of rapes of his wife, police reveal how they caught 50 alleged abusers

A French man stands accused of recruiting dozens of strangers to rape his drugged wife. Now more details about his alleged sick secret life have beeen revealed.

Frenchman on trial for inviting strangers to rape unconscious wife

A man accused of repeatedly drugging his wife so men he met online could rape her for nearly a decade had already attacked his wife “at least 200 times” before the mass abuse began, a French court has heard.

An investigator leading the probe into the man accused of orchestrating repeated rapes of his wife told a court Wednesday of painstaking efforts to identify the perpetrators via the husband’s detailed records of the assaults.

Dominique P., a 71-year-old retiree, had abused his wife between 2011 and 2020, drugging her with sleeping pills and then recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her.

He documented the decade-long abuse of his wife, Gisele P., with meticulous precision, allowing French police to track down more than 50 men suspected of raping her while she was drugged.

Police commissioner Jérémie Bosse Platière said in court on Wednesday that he believed the man had already raped his wife at least 200 times before the strangers started arriving at their house.

On the third day of the trial in the southern city of Avignon, the commissioner in charge of the inquiry said investigators sifted through numerous telephone bills, pictures and videos and used facial recognition software to identify the suspects, all of them men.

“I chose to put together a very tight team of four investigators,” Jeremie Bosse Platiere, director of the Hautes-Alpes interdepartmental police force, told the court.

“And I chose people who had the stomach to face the images.”

He said they had drawn up a list of 72 individuals suspected of abusing Gisele P., 72.

A French man is accused of orchestrating repeated rapes of his drugged wife. A court sketch shows a team of lawyers, the 50 men accused of rape (centre), and the alleged husband who recruited them (right). Picture: Benoit Peyrucq / AFP
A French man is accused of orchestrating repeated rapes of his drugged wife. A court sketch shows a team of lawyers, the 50 men accused of rape (centre), and the alleged husband who recruited them (right). Picture: Benoit Peyrucq / AFP
Dominique P. (right, court sketch) stands accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home. Picture: Benoit Peyrucq / AFP
Dominique P. (right, court sketch) stands accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home. Picture: Benoit Peyrucq / AFP

The investigators counted around 200 instances of rape, most of them by Dominique P. and over 90 by strangers enlisted through an adult website.

The assaults took place between July 2011 and October 2020, mainly in the couple’s home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people in the southern region of Provence.

Given the sheer number of suspects, police had to carry out arrests in five waves between late 2020 and September 2021.

Apart from the husband, only 50 suspects, aged between 26 and 74, have so far been identified and tracked down. Most of them face up to 20 years in jail for aggravated rape if convicted.

Eighteen of the 51 accused including Dominique P. are in custody, while 32 other defendants are attending the trial as free men.

The last one, still at large, will be judged in absentia.

Investigators initially identified 54 suspects, but one has since died and two others have been excluded for lack of evidence.

Gisele P. (left, with son David) has bravely waived her right to anonymity and appeared in court every day. Picture: Christophe Simon / AFP
Gisele P. (left, with son David) has bravely waived her right to anonymity and appeared in court every day. Picture: Christophe Simon / AFP

‘Libertine practices’

Dominique P. was exposed by chance when he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a local supermarket.

Many suspects have said they thought they were helping a libertine couple live out its fantasies. Not a single man tipped off the police.

“In libertine practices, it’s very important to get the woman’s consent,” said the investigator.

Antoine Camus, a lawyer for the family, said the suspects insisted they were not raping the victim, but at the same did everything not to wake her up.

“In reality, you hear whispers,” he said.

Dominique Pelicot who is accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France, in Avignon, on September 2, 2024. Picture: Supplied
Dominique Pelicot who is accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France, in Avignon, on September 2, 2024. Picture: Supplied

Gisele P. never appeared “conscious” in the videos, but sometimes the team heard her groan or snore, the investigator said.

“On no video does Madame P. appear conscious or make any gesture,” Bosse Platiere said. He said that in her sleep she sometimes reacted to the men’s movements including choking.

Dominique P. put together a dossier containing thousands of pictures and videos of the assaults, which were stored on a hard disk in a folder named “abuse.” The folder contained sub-folders for each man who came to rape his wife.

“A list was then drawn up for each individual according to the name of the file,” said Bosse Platiere, adding that his team worked to identify men behind nicknames such as “Chris the fireman”, “Quentin”, “Gaston” and “David the Black”.

Caroline Darian (L) stands next to her brother Florian P. , at the courthouse during the trial of their father accused of drugging their mother for nearly ten years. Picture: Christophe SIMON / AFP
Caroline Darian (L) stands next to her brother Florian P. , at the courthouse during the trial of their father accused of drugging their mother for nearly ten years. Picture: Christophe SIMON / AFP

‘You like it rape style’

An initial list of 11 contacts recruited via Skype was identified on Microsoft’s software, and the investigators asked the US giant to help track IP addresses.

The police have also scrutinised countless telephone exchanges and online conversations between the husband and his wife’s potential attackers.

Several snippets of audio conversations were found.

“You are like me, you like it rape style,” the husband told one man. Bosse Platiere said the police worked to see if there was a link between the calls and instances of rape by looking at Dominique P.’s phone bills and the recovered images.

Dominique P. had also blocked numerous contacts on his phones, arousing the suspicion of the investigators.

“It’s unusual,” Bosse Platiere said, adding that it had taken them nearly two years to identify the men behind the phone numbers.

The team also used facial recognition software.

“This would enable us to identify a third of the perpetrators,” he said. The trial is due to hear from civil parties in the case on Thursday, including Gisele P. herself.

Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/french-man-stands-trial-accused-of-orchestrating-dozens-of-rapes-of-his-wife-police-reveal-how-they-caught-50-alleged-abusers/news-story/0e65e85a9120e6a3a7a44aa7d6a9c762