Dominique Pelicot: French man admits to drugging and raping ex-wife over a decade, seeks family's forgiveness
A 71-year-old French man admitted in court that he was “a rapist” as he sought forgiveness from his family after drugging his then-wife and invited dozens of men to rape her over nearly a decade, as well as raping her himself.
Dominique Pelicot told the court, “Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist. They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise,” as he pleaded with Gisele Pelicot and their three children as he gave evidence in the courtroom in Avignon.
Pelicot's testimony is a key moment in a trial that has captivated the country and brought attention to the issue of sexual violence. Although he had already confessed to investigators, the evidence he presents in court will be critical for the judges as they determine the fate of around 50 other men on trial with him. Many of the accused deny raping Gisele Pelicot, claiming they were either manipulated by her ex-husband or believed she had consented.
Ms Pelicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France by waiving her right to anonymity, allowing the trial to be public, and speaking openly to the media. She is expected to testify after her ex-husband’s testimony on Tuesday.
After days of uncertainty about his health, Pelicot appeared in court on Tuesday and admitted to all charges against him. Seated in a wheelchair, he spoke to the court for an hour, from his early life to years of abuse against his now ex-wife. Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pelicot told judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in a hospital when he was nine years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14. Pelicot also spoke of the trauma he endured when his parents took in a young girl in the family, and witnessed his father’s inappropriate behaviour toward her. “My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”
At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me”. “I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said. Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pelicot said she did not deserve what he did. “From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.
At that moment, Ms Pelicot, standing across the room, facing him across a group of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sunglasses back on. Later, Pelicot said: “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”
In 2020, a security agent caught Pelicot filming videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched his house and electronic devices and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Ms Pelicot while she appeared to lie unconscious on their bed. With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking. Ms Pelicot and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.
When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy”, according to legal documents. She later left her husband and they are now divorced. He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Besides Pelicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.
Pelicot’s much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.