By Henry Samuel
Warning: Graphic content
The daughter of a pensioner accused of recruiting 50 men to rape his drugged wife left a courtroom in tears after the judge said her father also kept naked photos of her.
Dominique Pélicot, 71, is charged with inviting men via a now-banned online chat forum to have intercourse with his wife, Gisèle, after drugging her unconscious.
Caroline Darian with her mother, Gisèle. Credit: AFP
Some 35 defendants pleaded not guilty on Tuesday (French time) and 14 guilty, including Pélicot, who admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquillisers.
One defendant is absent for unexplained reasons and another is on the run. They each face up to 20 years in jail if found guilty.
On day two of the trial in Avignon, southern France, harrowing details emerged as Roger Arata, the presiding judge, spent the entire day summing up the case, laid out in a 400-page indictment.
The judge, who is presiding over a panel of five magistrates, told the court that photos of Pélicot’s naked daughter Caroline Darian – a pen name – had been found on his computer, in a file entitled: “Around my daughter, naked.”
She collapsed in tears and left the room shaking with emotion, escorted by her two brothers and Antoine Camus, her mother’s lawyer, but reappeared about 20 minutes later.
For the couple’s children, “it’s immensely painful, unbearable”, Camus said afterwards.
“Even if they are not discovering anything new as they know the case, it was particularly gruelling this morning.”
The wife’s lawyers said she was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse that went on for a decade, mainly at their home in Mazan, Provence.
She has begun divorce proceedings.
The case, which has appalled France, came to light by chance when Pélicot was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020.
When questioned, he said he had “acted on urges” that he had “not been able to control”.
The defendants include a fireman, truck driver, councillor, IT worker in a bank, prison guard, nurse and a journalist.
Darian told Le Parisien this week that she was haunted by the fear her father may have invited some of the men to rape her, after a picture of her in someone else’s underwear was found on his computer.
“I’m convinced I was drugged, but he’ll never admit it,” she said.
Pélicot sat at the other end of the courtroom, directly opposite his wife on the second day of the trial. He was dressed in a grey T-shirt and listened intently to the proceedings. The couple’s two sons were also present. One stared at the father fixedly.
At first impassive, Pélicot appeared to fight back tears and bit his lips in front of his ex-wife and their three children.
The judge said Pélicot had told investigators about “three out of 10 men” refused his invitation after he explained in online chats what he was doing to his wife.
He cited some of the curious responses given by the men during police questioning.
One said he thought nothing illegal or non-consensual had occurred because of the presence of cameras at the couple’s home. “It couldn’t have been anything bad because it was all filmed,” he is cited as saying.
Another said that “as long as the husband was present, there was no rape”.
A third claimed he thought it was all part of “a couple’s game”, the court heard.
Other defendants claim to have been under the sway of Pélicot, who had acted like a “very controlling conductor”.
“I did what he asked but I didn’t know why,” claimed one.
But the judge cited the examining magistrate who stated that the defendants “could not have been unaware, in view of the victim’s inert state, that she was not in a normal state of consciousness.
“The victim was in a state closer to a coma than to sleep,” he added, citing expert reports.
The case continues.
The Telegraph, London
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