A woman who was allegedly drugged by her husband so he could film her being raped by dozens of strangers has had to watch videos of her sex attacks ahead of them being played in court.
Gisèle Pélicot, 72, waived her legal right to anonymity on Monday at the opening of the trial of Dominique Pélicot, 71, and 51 other men.
All are accused of aggravated rape in a trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon, which is due to last for four months.
Dominique is accused of orchestrating a sick rape ring, using an online forum to invite a horde of men to his home in Mazan near Avignon before filming them assaulting his wife over nine years between 2011 and 2020.
Asked to confirm his name and address at the start of proceedings, Pélicot said: ‘My home is prison, you know it’.
Ms Pélicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus, said: ‘She could have opted for a closed trial, but that’s what her attackers would have wanted.’ Still, she said, the trial will be ‘a horrible ordeal’ for Gisele.
Outside court, one of her other lawyers also explained how ‘the act of rewatching footage of her assault was difficult, for her and for all the family, but today the trial begins and the process must go ahead.’
The Pélicots shared a large family house and – outwardly – were highly respectable pensioners with family members who visited regularly.
Gisèle Pélicot – a French woman whose husband is on trial for drugging her and allowing dozens of strangers to rape her while unconscious – is seen arriving in court today
Gisèle Pélicot (left) speaks to her lawyer (right) as she sits to the side of the courtroom
Ms Pélicot 72, was seen standing in the courtroom supported by her three children to witness the opening day of the trial of Dominique Pélicot, 71
Dominique Pélicot (pictured) is accused of orchestrating a sick rape ring, using an online forum to invite a horde of men to his home in Mazan near Avignon before filming them assaulting his wife over nine years between 2011 and 2020
The heinous campaign of sexual abuse masterminded by Dominique is said to have begun in 2011 when the couple was living near Paris, and continued after they moved to Mazan
Neighbours spoke about them as ‘lovely people’ who held parties around their swimming pool, in a well-kept garden, according to court evidence.
In fact, Pélicot was allegedly a multiple rapist who moved his family from greater Paris in 1991, and later allegedly set up the sex ring.
It involved advertising on a site for ‘partners’ on an online forum called ‘Without Her Knowing’.
Out of the 51 men accused, twenty of them, including Pélicot, are in custody, while the others remain on bail.
Police counted a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified and are being tried alongside the main suspect, a former employee at France‘s power utility company EDF.
Presiding judge Roger Arata announced that all the hearings would be public, granting Gisele’s wish to waive her anonymity and keep ‘complete publicity until the end’ of the court case, according to her lawyer, Stephane Babonneau.
Ms Babonneau added: ‘She was dreading this moment but is relieved that the hearing is open and that she will not be locked up for four months with her assailants.
‘She wants to raise awareness as widely as possible about date rape drugs so that this never happens again.’
Gisele could have opted for a trial behind closed doors given the nature of her husband’s alleged crimes, but ‘that’s what her attackers would have wanted’, another lawyer named Antoine Camus said.
‘For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years,’ Camus said, adding that his client had ‘no recollection’ of the abuse which she only discovered in 2020.
One of her lawyers also said: ‘In terms of her mood, there is already a sense of relief that the trial is public, and that she won’t be in court alone over four months with her attackers.
‘So that provides some comfort. She’s also preparing herself, she knows her words will be highly scrutinised, and will lead to questioning by the defence. So today she’s getting ready, she wants to express herself, and she will take the time to do so when it is asked of her and we expect that to happen quite rapidly this week
A black and white facial reconstruction of a younger Dominique P is seen in this handout image
Co-defendants speak with a lawyer at the courthouse during 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
The President of the Vaucluse Assises Court Roger Arata speaks at the courthouse during the trial of Dominique Pélicot in the south of France, in Avignon, on September 2, 2024
‘The act of rewatching footage of her assault was difficult, for her and for all the family, but today the trial begins and the process must go ahead.’
Speaking to the press on Monday morning, Pélicot’s lawyer Béatrice Zavarro said her client felt huge remorse.
‘He is ashamed of what he has done, it’s unforgivable’, she told reporters, adding that his criminal acts were part of ‘a form of addiction’.
‘My client’s line of conduct is that he recognises what he has done and that has not been in dispute one iota since the beginning,’ she said.
The couple met in 1971 and married two years later before having three kids together.
Gisele previously said her husband had asked her to try swinging – a request she refused. But she also described him as a ‘great guy’ with a ‘normal sexuality’.
Their eldest son said nothing in his father’s behaviour suggested any deviance and that ‘he had always fulfilled his role as a father’, while their daughter spoke fondly of her father’s presence in her life as a young girl.
The heinous campaign of sexual abuse masterminded by Dominique is said to have begun in 2011 when the couple was living near Paris, and continued after they moved to Mazan two years later.
Police began to investigate the defendant Dominique in September 2020 when he was caught by a security guard secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.
Police said they found hundreds of pictures and videos of his wife on his computer, visibly unconscious and mostly in the foetal position.
The images are alleged to show dozens of rapes in the couple’s home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people roughly 20 miles from Avignon in Provence.
Investigators also found chats on a site called coco.fr, since shut down by police, in which he recruited strangers to come to their home and have intercourse with his wife.
Dominique Pélicot later admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilisers, especially Temesta, an anxiety-reducing drug.
Demonstrators hold placards and smoke bombs during a protest outside the courthouse during 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
Demonstrators hold placards during a protest outside the courthouse during the trial of a man accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years
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 husband took part in the rapes, filmed them and encouraged the other men using degrading language, according to prosecutors.
In previous hearings, he explained how he took a range of precautions to avoid his wife or family from discovering the dark deeds.
French outlet Le Point reported how Dominique imposed strict rules on each of the men who he invited to rape his wife: no perfume or tobacco, cut and clean nails, hands first run under hot water so as not to risk waking the victim.
All were told to wash their hands, and not to wear aftershave, so she would not sense they were strangers.
The attackers would park a few minutes from the couple’s home and undress in the kitchen. No money changed hands.
The accused rapists included a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss and a journalist.
Some were single, others married or divorced, and some were family men. Most participated just once, but some took part up to six times.
Their defence has been that they simply helped a libertine couple live out its fantasies, but Dominique told investigators that all were aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge.
An expert said her state ‘was closer to a coma than to sleep’.
Her husband told prosecutors that only three men left the house quickly after arriving, while all others proceeded to have intercourse with his wife.
This photograph taken on September 2, 2024 shows a road sign at the entrance of the town of Mazan, southern France. Dominique P, accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home in Mazan, faces a French court in Avignon
Dominique, who said he was raped by a male nurse when he was nine, is ready to face ‘his family and his wife’, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro said.
‘He is ashamed of what he did, it is unforgivable,’ Zavarro told reporters on Monday morning, adding that the case was ‘in a form of addiction’.
‘My client’s line of conduct is that he recognises what he did and there has not been an ounce of protest since the beginning,’ she said in comments carried by French press.
But this trial may not be his last.
The defendant has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, to which he admitted after DNA testing.
Experts said the man does not appear to be mentally ill, but reportedly concluded that had a need to feel ‘all-powerful’ over the female body in assessments included in court documents.
The shocking trial is due to last until December 20.