The ‘Monster of Avignon’ stunned the courtroom in his closely watched trial today as he admitted to drugging his wife and allowing multiple strangers to rape her.
Dominique Pélicot, 71, spoke for the first time about his crimes on Tuesday morning after a period of absence from his trial due to sickness.
‘I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom,’ he admitted today during a trial that has captured the world’s attention for its scale and horror. ‘I recognise the facts in their totality’.
Mr Pélicot stood in the dock at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon as he faces trial alongside 50 other men, all accused of ‘aggravated rape’ of his wife Gisèle Pélicot, also 71, over a period of ten years. He faces 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Bravely facing her former husband in court, Ms Pélicot said: ‘It is difficult to hear it.
‘For fifty years, I lived with a man who I would never have imagined for a single second that he could do these acts. I had complete confidence in this man.’
In a courtroom sketch, Mr Pélicot appears at the courthouse in Avignon on September 11
Dominique Pélicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over 10yrs
Gisele Pelicot arrives at the criminal court in Avignon, southern France, September 17
In turn, Dominique Pélicot then pleaded for sympathy, saying: ‘I am guilty of what I did.
‘I subjected my wife, my children, my grandchildren to this. I regret what I did. I ask for forgiveness even if it is not forgivable.’
Madame Pélicot looked on impassively at her former husband as he shuffled into court using a cane to support himself.
The courtroom was stunned as Mr Pélicot returned to the court from a period of absence to confess to his crimes.
‘Today, I maintain that, with the obligations we all have, I am a rapist, like everyone in this room. They cannot say otherwise,’ he told the court.
Mr Pélicot also focused on alleged crimes he had allegedly suffered as a child, saying he was raped as a nine year old, and then forced to witness another sex attack when he was 14.
Discussing his assessment by psychiatrists, Mr Pélicot maintained that he ‘was not born perverted’.
He had previously claimed that he was sexually abused as nine year old in hospital and told the court: ‘It was in the dark, I had a bandage and a headache. A guy came and said to me: ‘My name is Basile, do you want some candy?’
‘There were caresses, I felt a moustache, a great deal of pain, I didn’t understand what was happening to me.’
‘I only remember shocks and traumas from my youth. She did not deserve this. I admit it,’ he added.
‘We are not born perverts, we become them. I think that what I have experienced is preponderant in my story.
‘Even if it is paradoxical, I have never considered my wife as an object. As for pedophilia, I have never wanted that.’
Mr Pélicot faced his wife in court on Tuesday, telling how his life only began to turn around when he met her as a teenager.
‘I was very happy with her,’ said Mr Pélicot. ‘She was the opposite of my mother, who was completely rebellious.
‘We had three children, and grandchildren, whom I never touched.’
He said Gisèle Pélicot ‘did not deserve this.’
At the end of the short statement, Ms Pélicot lowered her head, putting her sunglasses on.
Mr Pélicot previously told psychologists that his wife was to blame for his actions because she refused to go swinging with him.
Psychologist Annabelle Montagne told the court in Avignon that she interviewed Mr Pélicot in December 2020 – a month and a half after he was taken into custody – where he admitted to carrying out the campaign of abuse of his wife Gisele.
‘Pélicot said: ‘My wife and I had a discussion about swinging but she didn’t agree so I drugged her”,’ the psychologist recounted.
To the court, Ms Pélicot said the topic had come up at a nightclub, but she said she ‘didn’t want to get involved’.
Bravely facing her former husband in court on Tuesday as he expressed remorse, Ms Pélicot said: ‘It is difficult to hear it.
‘For fifty years, I lived with a man who I would never have imagined for a single second that he could do these acts. I had complete confidence in this man.’
Mr Pélicot then pleaded for sympathy, saying: ‘I am guilty of what I did.
‘I subjected my wife, my children, my grandchildren to this. I regret what I did. I ask for forgiveness even if it is not forgivable.’
As the cross-examination continued on Tuesday, the defendant insisted he ‘still loves’ his ex-wife.
‘I loved her well for 40 years and loved her badly for 10 years,’ said Pélicot. ‘I ruined everything, I lost everything. I should never have done that.’
Mr Pélicot claimed he also ‘still loves’ his three adult children, saying: ‘They are in my heart.’
He even praised his daughter, Caroline Darian, for founding a protest group against so-called ‘chemical submission’ – the drugging of rape victims.
Pélicot also admitted that videoing the crimes against his wife was ‘a part of the pleasure’, but he was glad that most of the men who had sex with his wife had been identified.
‘There is also a measure of reassurance, since today, thanks to [the videos], we can find all those who participated in what went on,’ he said.
Other defendants in court were visibly angry as Pélicot criminalised them all. ‘He manipulated us,’ one shouted.
Caroline Darian (C) arrives for the trial of her mother’s former partner on September 11
Gisèle Pélicot arrives at court in Avignon, France on day eight of the trial
Dominique Pelicot can be seen in this court sketch on the right
Mr Pélicot’s candid testimony had been delayed until Tuesday after a bout of illness brought on by a kidney stone and urinary infection.
He appeared in court in a wheelchair to finally confront his actions, and accused the dozens of men alleged to have assaulted his wife with him of complicity.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Dominique Pélicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Defendants looked visibly angry as Mr Pélicot attributed blame to them.
Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.
Of the 83 men involved in the campaign of abuse, 51 aged between 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by the police.
One, still at large, will be judged in absentia.
Mr Pélicot has been on remand since 2020, when he was first arrested on suspicion of gassing and then raping Ms Pélicot, while inviting men he contacted online to do the same.
Madame Pélicot has told the court that she had to get tested for HIV as ‘one man who came [to rape me] six times was seropositive’.
Mr Pélicot is facing a jail sentence of up to 20 years, along with all the other defendants.
Last week, psychologists described Mr Pélicot as a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character who appeared like a normal husband during the day, and then drugged his wife so strangers could rape her at night.
All the attacks took place in the couple’s marital home in the town of Mazan, south of France, between 2010 and 2020, police say.
His daughter, Caroline Darian, 46, last week told the court that he was ‘one of the greatest sexual predators’ of recent years.
She said he secretely photographed her in the nude, along with her two sister-in-laws.
Mr Pélicot was first arrested in September 2020 for secretely filming up women’s skirts at a supermarket in Carpentras.
His devices were searched, and there were hundreds of pornographic videos and photos of women.
It was while in custody that Mr Pélicot reported a hard drive, hidden under a printer, which contained a file called ‘Abuses’.
Police uncovered sickening pictures of Ms Darian, and Mr Pélicot’s two daughters-in-laws, in a haul some 200,000 images and videos.
The folder contained the nicknames and telephone numbers of other alleged attackers, together with some 3,800 photos and videos of Gisèle Pélicot being raped, between 2011 and 2020.
Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.
Mr Pélicot’s sex ring involved advertising on a site for ‘partners’ on a now-deleted online forum called ‘Without Her Knowing’ on the coco.fr site.
Of the 83 men involved, 51 aged between 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by the police.
One, still at large, will be judged in absentia.
Mr Pélicot is said to have sedated his wife by putting a powerful anxiolytic into her evening dinner.
Caroline last week said Pelicot was ‘one of the greatest sexual predators’ of recent years
Abuse took place in the town of Mazan, south of France, and was only uncovered after the man was caught up-skirting women in a local supermarket – prompting officers to search his home
Alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a journalist, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers.
In a separate case, Mr Pélicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991.
He has admitted one attempted rape in 1999, after DNA testing proved a case against him.
The Avignon aggravated rape case is due to last until December 21.
Fourteen of the other defendants have also admitted rape, while the rest deny any wrongdoing.
Mr Pélicot had been expected to be cross-examined at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon last week.
But his legal team insisted on Thursday morning that was not well enough to give evidence because of abdominal pain and a suspected bladder infection.
He briefly appeared in court on Wednesday morning, but defence barrister Beatrice Zavarro confirmed on Thursday that he was ‘still ill’ and would not be showing up.
Mr Pélicot had been vomiting and fainting in his prison cell, where he has been on remand since 2020, in between visits to hospital for treatment and tests.
Last Wednesday, the court heard how another man on trial, named only as Jean-Pierre, 63, allegedly learned from Mr Pélicot how to drug and rape his own wife.
The ‘disciple’ is not among the 51 men on trial for attacking Mrs Pélicot.
The former lorry driver was claimed to have spoken to Mr Pélicot in an online chatroom called ‘Against her knowledge’.
Mr Pélicot is then alleged to have provided sedatives for ‘Jean-Pierre’ to drug his wife, before travelling to rape her himself.
A black and white facial reconstruction of a younger Dominique P is seen in this handout image
Police found a file in Pelicot’s computer labelled ‘My Daughter Naked’. Pictured: Caroline Darian (left) at the courthouse during the trial of her father
A court drawing shows Madame Pelicot taking the stand, facing her husband and the 50 others accused of raping her
Mr Pélicot is alleged to have met Jean-Pierre in the now defunct chatroom, before agreeing to visit him to deliver sedatives and rape his wife with him.
‘Each time that [Pélicot] travelled [there], he provided him with the medication for the next time,’ lead investigator Stéphan Gal told the court.
Mr Pélicot’s lawyer said he had supplied Jean-Pierre with the drugs as many as four times.
Jean-Pierre’s 32-year-old son from another marriage said he felt it a ‘certainty’ his father had been manipulated by Pélicot.
‘I have the firm conviction that had he not met this person, there would never have been any of this,’ he said.