As British tourists marvelled yesterday at the holy sites in Avignon, the so-called City of Popes, I sat in a stifling courtroom beside the historic ramparts and watched an ageing woman being dragged through the bowels of hell.
For four torturous years, since police swooped on her country home, Gisele Pelicot has been tormented by an unbearable truth.
That for the final ten years of a seemingly idyllic marriage, her husband, Dominique, had been slipping sleeping pills into her evening meals, then inviting strangers to allegedly rape her – in full view of his video camera – as she lay unconscious.
This appalling revelation caused her to suffer a total mental breakdown and drove her to the brink of suicide.
So how can we begin to imagine the dark thoughts that ran through this middle-class, 71-year-old grandmother’s mind yesterday, when for the first time she set eyes on the 50 men accused of violating her as she lay sleeping?
How can we fathom her demons when, one by one, they were summoned before a judge to give their names, ages and occupations, and she began to absorb the sheer number of apparently respectable men – restaurateurs, plumbers, firemen, shopkeepers – aged from 26 to 72 – who allegedly sneaked into her home to abuse her?
Brave Gisele Pelicot arrives at the courthouse during the trial of her husband Dominique, accused of drugging her for nearly ten years and inviting 50 strangers to rape her at their home in southern France
Dominique Pelicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over a decade until his arrest in 2020
A black and white facial reconstruction of a younger Dominique Pelicot is seen in this handout image
Gisele (in olive-green dress) sits next to her daughter Caroline Darian and her sons Florian (far left) and David (right) in court behind a row of lawyers
Since his arrest, in November 2020, Mme Pelicot had not set eyes on her husband, Dominique Pelicot, either.
As he took his seat in the dock, looking more like an avuncular retired bank manager than the architect and videographer of voyeuristic rapes, she craned over her lawyer to stare intently at him.
Behind tinted glasses, and wearing a patterned, olive-green frock with a neat auburn bob, her only remark to her lawyer, Antoine Camus, was that she was surprised how much her husband had aged during his four years in prison on remand.
Before the trial, however, M. Camus said she had been ‘hugely apprehensive’ about facing down her husband and hearing details of the assaults she unknowingly suffered.
Understandably so. For when police examined a computer file Pelicot kept hidden (artlessly labelled ‘Abuse’), they found that he had filmed his sleeping wife being raped an astonishing 90 times, between 2011 and 2020.
Since many of the alleged attackers were catalogued by name, along with precise descriptions of the acts they perpetrated, 50 were apprehended. However, a further 22 could not be identified, and, as the case is now closed, they will never be brought to justice.
‘This is a family that is annihilated, devastated,’ M Camus said before the case. ‘They are ready to face this ordeal but know that it will be very difficult. Everyone loved this man, and for four years they haven’t been able to confront him with his duplicity.’
It was only now, he added, that Mme Pelicot would ‘really learn, for the first time… what really happened to her. We know she didn’t know anything that was inflicted on her. She has no memory of the rapes she suffered for ten years. She will discover [what was done to her] during these four months. This is what makes this case such a terrible ordeal for her.’
Dominique Pelicot is accused of orchestrating the rape ring
Some of the 50 co-defendants accused of rape speak with a lawyer at the courthouse in the case that has shocked France
A wonan arrives at the courthouse before the trial of a man 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
This trial – which is expected to last until Christmas – is a French legal landmark.
With 51 men, including Pelicot, all accused of aggravated rape, officials at Vaucluse departmental criminal court say it is the biggest number of defendants to have been tried together in recent years, certainly in their region and possibly anywhere in France. Indeed, so many had to be shoehorned into the courtroom yesterday that, while 18 of them – already in custody – were crammed into a Perspex-screened dock, a further 32, who are free on bail, were seated in the well of the court (one failed to appear, and an arrest warrant has been issued).
In France, this is also the first known case of a husband allegedly drugging his wife for others to sexually assault – and the first to highlight the growing practice of using chemicals to render the victim unconscious before being raped.
It also throws a timely spotlight on internet chatrooms such as the one where Pelicot recruited his wife’s alleged rapists and where he posted the videos: a now shut-down site for voyeurs called ‘a son insu’, which translates as ‘without him, or her, knowing’.
Under French law, Mme Pelicot could have chosen to have the trial heard behind closed doors, with only the verdict being reported.
With immense courage, however, she chose yesterday to have an open hearing, and also waived her right to anonymity, allowing herself to be photographed, flanked by her daughter Caroline Darian, before the proceedings began.
Her lawyer, M. Camus, explained that she made this decision in the hope that some good might come of her defilement. ‘Her first wish is obviously that this should be known,’ he told a French news outlet. ‘She wants this to get out there, so as many people as possible become aware of this type of thing and it can’t happen again. She is not going to be ashamed by what happened to her, as other rape victims often are.
‘It is a way of her showing that it is possible to recover from such an ordeal. And she wants to ensure that the shame is not with her but with the accused.’
In that regard, Mme Pelicot has already won. That much was clear as I watched the 50 alleged rapists stand to identify themselves before court president Roger Arata.
Some were bedraggled-looking, sporting ponytails, earrings and beards, and dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts; others – such as the lone journalist among them – were more clean-cut.
While the great majority gave home addresses within the Vaucluse department, they appeared to be a cross-section of provincial Frenchmen. Faces one might see in any corner tabac or brasserie.
‘We are not dealing with habitual rapists,’ insists defence lawyer Louis-Alain Lemaire, who represents four of the accused.
Speaking before the trial, he added: ‘They agreed to go (to the Pelicots’ house) and take their responsibilities. But they did not have the impression or at all the intention of going to rape – otherwise they wouldn’t have gone.
‘That is obvious. And yet, that is why they are being prosecuted – it’s going to be a big debate.’
His claims were echoed by Guillame de Palma, who represents a further six of the men.
‘We are defending people who have quite ordinary lives. Who overnight see their lives change,’ he said before the case opened, claiming his clients had no idea what Pelicot had in mind when he lured his house.
‘They went without knowing the trap that was set for them, maybe because they didn’t ask the right questions – but they didn’t realise anything,’ he said, rehearsing an argument that he clearly intends to use in court.
It was a claim repeated by one of the accused men, a gardener in his 60s, who spoke to me during a break in yesterday’s hearing.
Having met Pelicot through a swingers’ forum, he said he had been invited to his house in Mazan, a scenic village 20 miles from Avignon, never knowing that he would be invited to rape Pelicot’s sleeping wife.
Once he realised what was going on he had quickly left, he claimed – though not, he admitted, before sexually assaulting her.
These excuses are roundly dismissed by Mme Pelicot’s lawyer. ‘They are not Mr Everyone. In reality. we have a panel of very problematic people,’ M. Camus responds.
Grimly, he adds: ‘Just watch the videos to see that they attacked a dead woman. My client is in a state of sedation so deep that she seems to be dead.’
Whichever version of events the court favours, however, the root of this case is a barely believable act of marital betrayal.
For most of their marriage, the Pelicots lived in Paris, where they ran a business. But after retiring they moved to this tranquil Provencal village, renting a quaint chalet on a quiet lane for £1,100 a month. It was here that most of the rapes allegedly took place.
Outwardly, Dominique Pelicot, whose brother is a doctor, was a respectable figure who spent his days playing boules at the local club and cycling on his racing bike. His wife looked after their grandchildren and pottered about the garden.
During the trial, however, psychological experts who examined Pelicot will depict a ‘perverse personality’ devoid of empathy and gained kicks from debasing the wife he still professes to idolise.
Beatrice Zavarro, lawyer for the accused Dominique P, waits at the courthouse during the trial of her client 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
The town of Mazan, 20 miles from Avignon in southern France, where the victim and her husband lived and the attacks took place
Several times a month, it will be claimed, he would crush powerful tranquilisers into her evening meal, wait until she lost consciousness, then call men he met in the chatroom and tell them the coast was clear.
To ensure they weren’t seen, he allegedly told the would-be rapists to park well away from the house, avoid wearing after-shave or smelling of cigarette smoke, and ensure they left nothing behind in the bedroom.
It remains unclear whether the videos he took will be screened in court.
However, having been shown one of the sickening films last year, when I first investigated this case, if it is to be played then I hope that the victim will spare herself the ordeal of watching it.
Over the years, Mme Pelicot’s health suffered as a result of her repeated drugging, and she lost a great deal of weight. She also went to her GP with unexplained gynaecological problems.
However, she might never have known what was being done to her had her husband not been arrested, in 2020 – for taking surreptitious ‘upskirting’ pictures of women shoppers in a nearby supermarket.
When police searched his chalet in relation to that offence, they found the videos. Confronted with the evidence, his incredulous wife could only mouth, ‘I was his thing’, before she broke down.
According to his lawyer, Beatrice Zavarro, Pelicot has fully cooperated with investigators, explaining what he did and how he did it.
Only one question remains for the court to uncover, she told me: why did he enjoy watching the woman whom he ‘genuinely loved’ being molested like a ragdoll by strange men?
Over the ensuing months, his wretchedly betrayed, admirably brave wife may at last learn what became of her when supper was over.
We must hope she can withstand the anguish that will inevitably accompany the cold truth.
Additional reporting; Rory Mulholland