A French man being tried for recruiting strangers to rape his drugged wife has been hospitalised, his lawyer has said, in a development that could lead to the trial being adjourned.
Dominique Pélicot, 71, has been on trial since last week for repeatedly raping and enlisting dozens of strangers to abuse his heavily sedated wife in her own bed between 2011 and 2020.
Fifty other men, aged 26-74, are also on trial for alleged involvement in a case that has horrified France.
The main defendant, who has admitted to the charges against him, was to be questioned on Tuesday afternoon. But on Monday he appeared frail, leaning on a cane and the glass side of the dock, and was excused from court after experiencing what his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said was abdominal pain.
On Tuesday, he was hospitalised, Zavarro told the court, saying it would make “no sense to continue without him being present”.
The presiding judge, Roger Arata, ordered that the accused be examined, saying he could request a suspension of the trial “until his state of health improves”.
During a break on Tuesday, Zavarro said her client was in no way “evading” his trial. “Mr Pélicot will not evade his trial. He will be there, he will respond to all questions. But he has this medical issue that he did not plan,” she said. She said his pains had started on Friday. “He has always said he would be present and testify. It’s essential,” she added.
Experts on Monday had described Pélicot as a self-centred manipulator with no empathy and a split personality.
His former wife, Gisèle Pélicot, 71, says she was troubled by strange memory lapses for years until police uncovered the abuse by chance after he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a local supermarket.
The trial is open to the public at her request to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual assault.
The family’s attorney, Stéphane Babonneau, earlier on Tuesday said it was “absolutely necessary that Mr Pélicot be treated medically and be able to attend the debates”.
“Gisèle Pélicot and her children do not wish to testify without him being present,” he added.
Most of the alleged rapes took place in the couple’s home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people in the southern region of Provence. Pélicot kept meticulous records of the abuse of his wife, discovered after police seized his computer and other equipment.
An investigator, who waded through images and footage found on the main defendant’s computer, told the court on Tuesday that all of the co-accused must have known that Gisèle Pélicot was unconscious.
“Beyond the images, you need to listen to the sound. You immediately notice that she’s sleeping,” Stephan Gal said. “Some even came back on several occasions, and none could have been unaware that she was in a deep unconscious state.”
Eighteen of the 51 accused, including Dominique Pélicot, are in custody, while 32 other defendants are attending the trial as free men. The last, still at large, is being judged in absentia.
The investigator recounted the case of one of the co-defendants, Mathieu D, accused of sexually abusing Gisèle Pélicot, like many others without a condom. Police identified him thanks to a distinctive tattoo, Gal said. They found his contact on the Dominique Pélicot’s phone, and his phone data showed he was in Mazan on the same day.
When interrogated, Mathieu D “said he knew Dominique Pélicot was going to put his wife to sleep, but he thought it was part of a ‘sexual game’. He said it was presented as a scenario and he had naively, blindly gone for it,” Gal said.
The Pélicots’ daughter, Caroline Darian, 45, has said her life was “literally turned upside down” when she heard of the abuse. Naked photomontages of her had also been found on her father’s computer.
The couple’s two sons are expected to speak in the trial.