The trial of a French man who recruited dozens of strangers to rape his drugged wife in their home will resume on Monday, with the cases of eight new defendants being examined in court.
The case of Dominique Pellicot, 71, and 50 other co-defendants aged 26 to 74 has sparked outrage and sparked protests since it opened on September 2 in the southern city of Avignon.
For her refusal to be embarrassed and for demanding that the trial be opened to the public, his former wife Gisele Pellicot, now 71, has become a feminist heroine in France and abroad.
The court has already examined 36 defendants, including Pellicote himself, and will begin questioning eight more co-accused on Monday after a week’s break.
Antoine Camus, one of Gisele Pellicot’s lawyers, said the international attention has given his client the strength to move forward.
“It’s an endurance race, but he’s definitely up for the fight and determined to see it through,” he told AFP, “because he’s also been lifted by this wave of support in France and abroad.”
“She often finds multiple accounts that uplift her and help her in this marathon that she’s not completing just for herself.”
The abuse was exposed when police arrested Dominique Pellicot in 2020 for filming herself up the skirts of women in a local supermarket.
He has admitted to raping his then-wife Gisele Pellicot and sexually assaulting dozens of people between 2011 and 2020, meticulously documenting the abuse in thousands of images investigators found on his hard drive.
driver, cleaner, hiv positive man
But his co-accused, most of whom face up to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape if convicted, have largely claimed they had no idea it was rape.
They said they thought they were taking part in a free couple’s sex game.
Camus said, “It is really tiring for Gisele Pellicote to hear almost systematically the same explanations from the accused.” “She was the victim of ‘accidental’ rape, ‘rape by error of judgment’, or ‘unwilling’ rape.”
The next eight people to be cross-examined from Monday include a 36-year-old truck driver, a 31-year-old labourer, a 36-year-old cleaner and a 42-year-old restaurant manager.
These include a 50-year-old software technician who has been accused of planning to copy Dominique Pellicot’s methods on his own wife.
An HIV-positive single man, now aged 63, is accused of abusing Gisele Pellicot by visiting Pellicot’s home in the southern city of Mazan six times, not once using a condom.
The court will also examine the case of the 30-year-old man who is the only co-defendant who is being tried in his absence.
‘Misbehaved with his own daughter’
Finally, a 41-year-old unemployed woman has been accused of raping Gisele Pellicot, with the complicity of her then-husband, at the couple’s daughter’s home in the Paris region in 2019.
He denied committing rape on the first day of the trial.
The couple’s two sons and daughter, who is known by her pseudonym Caroline Derian, have regularly attended trials to support their mother.
But Derian was not present at some recent hearings.
In late October, after the test reached the halfway mark, she announced on Instagram that she was checking into a clinic for a few days to recharge and “be able to sleep again”.
Derian, who wrote the book “Et j’ai ses de t’épeller papa” (“And I Stop Calling You Dad”) in 2022, has campaigned for awareness of the use of drugs for sexual abuse.
She quickly left the court crying during the hearing as the presiding judge explained how her father also had nude photos of her on his computer.
“I too am a victim of Dominic P,” Darian wrote on Instagram.
“He drugged me without my knowledge and undoubtedly abused his and his only daughter.”
The trial is to continue till December 20.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
