By Catherine Porter and Ségolène Le Stradic
Avignon, France: The last of 50 men to be cross-examined in the rape of a drugged and naked Gisele Pelicot stood before the judges in a white sweater and jeans.
Philippe Leleu: Single, no children, a dedicated weight lifter and professional gardener who, at 62, was nearing retirement when the police came knocking. His mother opened the door – they live beside one another, and since her stroke 10 years ago, they dine together and he spends most nights at her home.
“I never imagined I’d come before a court for him, never, never,” she told the judges recently.
Dominique Pelicot’s co-accused pass security on arrival at the court in Avignon.Credit: AFP
Yet here he was, among the accused, standing in the crowded courtroom in the southern city of Avignon, part of a mass rape trial, now in its 12th week, that has deeply shaken France.
Pelicot’s ex-husband of 50 years, Dominique Pelicot, has pleaded guilty to drugging her for almost a decade to rape her, and offering her unconscious body up to strangers he met online. Prosecutors on Tuesday requested the maximum sentence for him: 20 years in prison.
He’s on trial with 50 other men – all but one charged with aggravated rape, attempted rape or sexual assault of Gisele Pelicot. The French media have dubbed them “Monsieur Tout-le-monde” – Mr Everyman – because of how varied the men are, and how ordinary.
They are short, tall, flabby, lean, clean-shaven, bearded, bald and pony-tailed. 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 IT expert working for a bank, a local journalist.
Gisele Pelicot, right, arrives with lawyers Antoine Camus, left, and Stéphane Babonneauat the palace of justice in Avignon after a break on Monday.Credit: AP
They range in age from 27 to 74. Just over two-thirds have children. Around 40 per cent had criminal records, several for domestic abuse and two for rape.
There are few common denominators: 18 suffered from addiction to alcohol or drugs; the rest did not. Around a dozen reported being sexually abused as children. Some others, including Leleu, spoke of loving childhood homes.
“The profile of the rapist does not exist,” said Antoine Camus, one of Gisele Pelicot’s two lawyers, in his closing statement last week.
The men appeared before the court in groups of five to seven over 10 weeks – offering only small glimpses into each man’s life.
Leleu was the last person in the final group.
“I stopped thinking and I stopped having a connection with my brain,” explained Leleu, his short, wiry body weaving from side to side as he spoke.
Women demonstrate to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Monday, as the trial of dozens of men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot while she was drugged and rendered unconscious by her husband continues.Credit: AP
Like dozens of the men who came before him, Leleu pleaded not guilty to raping Gisele Pelicot. In his defence, he said Dominique Pelicot told him she had taken the drugs herself.
“I’m sorry to Madame Pelicot for involuntarily participating in her suffering,” he said before squeezing back down on his bench.
Among the others in that group was Christian Lescole, 57, a firefighter and divorced father of two daughters. His partner, with whom he had planned to open a dog kennel, told the court he was an amazing man. “I don’t think he’s capable of committing rape,” she said.
A court sketch of Gisele Pelicot and her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, during his rape trial in Avignon.Credit: AP
Lescole is among five of the accused who also face charges of possessing images of child sexual abuse. He has been in pretrial custody for four years.
“I have no future left. I spent my life protecting people. I never had a problem with justice before,” Lescole said. In contrast to many other defendants, he was relatively loquacious during his testimony.
Since the court case began in early September, Lescole has attended regularly, sitting in one of two prisoners’ boxes, often stroking his long beard while watching intensely. He was there in search of some existential answers, he said, “because this is not me. This doesn’t reflect my values. How did I get here?”
During the trial, he said he counted 18 men who’d said they’d been offered a drink by Dominique Pelicot after arriving at the Pelicots’ home. He now says he believes they’d all been drugged. He told the court he had no memory after stepping inside the bedroom.
“I have big doubts about my free will at that moment,” he said.
“Materially, I committed a rape,” he added. “But it was my body, not my brain.”
Joseph Cocco, 69, appeared before the judges as part of the same, final group. A retired manager of a beer company subsidiary, Cocco is one of only two defendants not charged with raping Gisele Pelicot. Instead, he has been charged with sexually assaulting her.
He is a father, cancer survivor and karate champion who led courses for the police. Like about half of the accused, Cocco was a swinger. He told the court he had started to swing with his former partner, the “love of my life”, who had recently left him after 23 years together. He said he was invited to the Pelicots’ home for a threesome, and Dominique Pelicot “never talked about rape or drugging his wife”.
That night, another accused man arrived around the same time. They both were captured naked by Dominique Pelicot’s camera, moving around Gisele Pelicot’s listless body. Cocco sat on the bed, stroked Gisele Pelicot’s backside – which he called a “libertine caress” – and went no further.
“At that moment, I heard snoring,” he said. “I posed the question – what is happening? Why is she not moving?”
When he did not receive answers, he left. But he didn’t call the police. None of the accused did.
“I don’t accept that I victimised Gisele Pelicot,” he said. “When you are trapped, you are really trapped.”
The final week included one of the youngest defendants: Charly Arbo, a labourer at a cement company. He was 22 when he first went to the Pelicots’ home in 2016. While most of the men admit to having gone to the home once, Arbo went six times. Police found 47 edited video clips of those visits on Dominique Pelicot’s electronic devices – two of which were watched by the court.
Stephane Babonneau, another of Gisele Pelicot’s lawyers, said he struggled to understand how Arbo could “not admit this was rape”.
“He told me she was consenting,” he responded, staring wide-eyed at the judges, referring to Dominique Pelicot.
Arbo was reluctant to offer the court his personal story. Judges pulled answers from him like rusty nails from hard wood. Although psychiatrists described his upbringing as dysfunctional, Arbo defended his family as loving.
The court heard in one video Arbo and Dominique Pelicot discussing a plan to drug Arbo’s mother so Pelicot could come and rape her. Arbo said he felt pressured by Pelicot to offer someone he knew, and his mother “was the first thing that popped into my head”.
Pelicot gave him three sedatives, wrapped in tin foil, according to his testimony. But Arbo told the court that he threw them away. Police found very small traces of sedatives in a sample of his mother’s hair, but he has not been charged with drugging her.
“I never, never, never gave medication to my mother,” Arbo said.
Asked about their relationship, he said he loved her “like any son loves their mum, nothing special or bizarre.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.