The daughter of a French man on trial for enlisting strangers to rape his drugged wife has described him as probably “one of the worst sexual criminals in past 20 years”.
Dominique Pélicot, a 71-year-old retiree, has admitted to abusing his wife without her knowledge between 2011 and 2020, drugging her with sleeping pills and then recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her in her own home.
“How are we supposed to rebuild ourselves when we know” what he did, said his daughter, 45-year-old Caroline Darian, who uses a pen name, speaking in court in the southern city of Avignon on the fifth day of a case that has horrified France.
Pélicot kept meticulous records of the abuse of his wife, which police discovered only by chance after he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket.
For years, his wife, Gisèle Pélicot, now aged 71 and with whom he is undergoing divorce proceedings, says she was troubled by strange memory lapses until she was contacted by police.
Speaking to the court on Friday morning, Darian recounted learning of the alleged abuse on 2 November 2020 from her mother after she had spoken to investigators.
“My life was literally turned upside down,” Darian said. “My mother said: ’I spent most of the day at the police station. Your father drugged me to rape me with strangers. I was made to look at the photos.’”
“It was what you call a tipping point, the start of a slow descent into hell where you have no idea how low you will sink,” she said, breaking down into tears. I called my brothers … We didn’t know what was happening to us.”
Darian had left the room in tears on Tuesday less than 20 minutes into the second day of the trial, as the presiding judge recounted how naked photomontages of her had also been found on Dominique Pélicot’s computer in a folder titled “Around my daughter, naked”.
Darian in 2022 wrote a book called Et j’ai cesse de t’appeler papa (“And I stopped calling you dad”) about the effect the discovery of the crimes had on the family.
Gisèle Pélicot has requested the trial of her husband be public to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse. The case has shaken France, with many commenting and some even circulating purported lists of the accused online.
Gisèle Pélicot and her family through their lawyers on Friday thanked members of the public for their support but called for “the utmost restraint on social media” during the court case.
“Our clients understand perfectly that this case is a tragedy for all families,” included those of the defendants, said one of them, Antoine Camus.
Paul-Roger Gontard, the lawyer of two of the accused, praised the move as protecting the families of his clients and other suspects who could be found innocent.
At least one person has set up a crowdfunding campaign for the family.
Gisèle Pélicot “does not wish for any crowdfunding campaigns to be launched and requests any already existing be ended”, her attorneys, Camus and Stephane Babonneau, also wrote in a statement.
The investigators counted about 200 instances of rape, most of them by Gisèle Pélicot’s husband and more than 90 by strangers.
Investigators drew up a list of 72 suspects besides the husband, and have so far managed to identify 50 of them, aged between 26 and 74, all on trial.
Gisèle Pélicot said on Thursday she had recognised only one of her alleged rapists, a man who had come to discuss cycling with her husband at their home, and whom he later used to greet at the bakery.
Most of the suspects face up to 20 years in jail for aggravated rape if convicted.
Eighteen of the 51 accused are in custody, including Dominique Pélicot. Thirty-two other defendants are attending the trial as free men. The last is being tried in absentia.
The trial is to last until 20 December.