The daughter of a French man facing trial for allegedly hiring strangers to rape his drugged wife described him on Friday as “possibly one of the worst sex offenders in the last 20 years”.
Dominic Pellicot, a 71-year-old retiree, has admitted to abusing his wife without her knowledge between 2011 and 2020, giving her sleeping pills and then hiring dozens of strangers to rape her in his home.
“How can we rebuild ourselves when we know what he did?” his daughter, Caroline Darien, 45, (who goes by a nickname), said in court in the southern city of Avignon on the fifth day of the case that has rocked France.
Pellicott kept meticulous records of his abuse of his wife, which police discovered by accident when he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket.
His wife, Gisele Pellicot, now 71 and going through divorce proceedings, says she was troubled by strange amnesia for several years, until she was contacted by police.
Speaking to the court on Friday morning, her daughter Darian said she learned about her mother’s alleged abuse after speaking to investigators on November 2, 2020.
“My life literally got turned upside down,” Darian said.
“My mother said: ‘I spent most of the day at the police station. Your father drugged me and raped me in front of strangers. I was forced to look at pictures.'”
“It was what you call the tipping point, the beginning of a slow descent into hell where you don’t know how low you’ll fall,” she said, breaking into tears.
“I called my brothers … we didn’t know what was happening to us.”
Darian left the room in tears less than 20 minutes into the second day of the hearing on Tuesday after the presiding judge described how nude photos of her were also found on Dominique Pellicot’s computer in a folder labeled “Around My Daughter, Naked.”
Darian wrote a book in 2022 called “Et je sais de tapler papa” (“And I stopped calling you Dad”) about the impact the discovery of the crimes had on the family.
– ‘Extreme restraint’ –
Gisele Pellicott has called for her husband’s trial to be made public to raise awareness about drug use for sexual abuse.
The case has rocked France, with many people commenting on it and some even circulating an alleged list of the accused online.
Gisele Pellicot and her family on Friday, through their lawyers, thanked the public for their support, but called for “the utmost restraint on social media” during the court case.
“Our clients understand very well that this case is a tragedy for all the families,” including the defendants’, Antoine Camus, one of the prosecutors, said.
Paul-Roger Gontard, a lawyer for two of the accused, praised the move, saying it would protect his clients and the families of other suspects who may be found innocent.
At least one person has started a crowdfunding campaign for the family.
Gisèle Pellicot “does not want any crowdfunding campaigns to be launched and requests that any campaigns already underway be terminated,” her lawyers, Camus and Stéphane Babonneau, also wrote in a statement.
Investigators found nearly 200 incidents of rape, most of them by Gisele Pellicot’s husband and more than 90 by strangers.
Investigators have compiled a list of 72 suspects besides the husband and have so far identified 50 of them, aged between 26 and 74, all of whom are facing trial.
Gisele Pellicot said on Thursday that she was only able to recognise one of her alleged rapists, who came to her home to discuss cycling with her husband, and was later welcomed into a bakery.
If convicted, most of the suspects face up to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape.
Of the 51 accused, 18 are in custody, including Dominique Pellicot. 32 other accused are attending the trial as free persons. The last accused is being tried in absentia.
The trial will continue till December 20.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
