50 men are being tried alongside Dominique Pelicot for the rape of his ex-wife, Gisèle. Ordinary men, fathers, socially integrated. Despite the facts of which they are accused, their wives have decided to support them.
The family is returning from lunch on the terrace of a restaurant in Avignon, a few tables away from Gisèle Pelicot and her friends. Wearing a khaki green jogging jacket and a hood over his head, the man hugs his daughter before entering the courtroom of the Vaucluse criminal court. His partner is a little behind, having testified in his favor in court this morning.
The father has been appearing before this court for three weeks: he is one of 50 men tried alongside Dominique Pelicot, accused of having raped the septuagenarian’s ex-wife. Like other relatives, mother and daughter believe that he was “manipulated” by Gisèle Pelicot’s husband – that he did not know that the victim was under the influence of medication.
“Why not believe him, why believe everyone and not him? We believe his version, because we know he’s not a rapist, we have no doubts,” react Valérie, the mother, and Erica, the daughter, in unison.
In the corridors of the Avignon court, the mother appears frail, withdrawn. The daughter is lively, dynamic, but also angry. “We think about it all the time, all the time, all the time… It’s hard, but we won’t let him go, we are convinced, we are sure that he is not a rapist. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. We don’t defend the indefensible.”
“He’s not a rapist”
Cyril D., 54, went to the Pelicots’ home in Mazan on September 2, 2019, to have a relationship with “a consenting couple,” he told investigators. That night, Valérie had treated herself to four days of vacation with her daughter. During this time, her partner was filmed by Dominique Pelicot forcing penetrations and fellatio on Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged and asleep, even nearly choking. – without him knowing, he said.
The police note however in their summary that he, like the husband, “are careful not to make noise”. To the police officers who came to arrest him on February 9, 2021, he said he had noticed a problem but had not stopped. Before the Vaucluse criminal court, this Friday, September 20, he again denied the intention of rape.
“I am 54 years old and it is true that I have overstepped the bounds of consent,” he conceded, however.
“Women do not belong to men, that’s where I blame myself,” he added, acknowledging that Dominique Pelicot had told him that he would give his wife pills “to relax.”
For Valérie, the world “collapsed” on February 9, 2021 – “that’s an understatement,” she says. That day, she was already at work when Cyril D. was arrested at their home at 6 a.m.
Informed of this arrest two hours later, she went to the police station with her daughter. “They told me that my partner was accused of rape. I understood that it was theft. I said ‘no, it’s not possible, you’ve got the wrong person’. They showed me photos of my husband, I recognized him right away,” she confides in a weak voice.
The police offered to take a sample of her hair, to check if she had not been drugged using the same process that Dominique Pelicot used. “I knew very well that it was not true, it was not possible, not possible,” the fifty-year-old dismisses.
Many exchanges in the visiting room
“The first thing we wanted to do was see Dad,” continues his daughter Erica, in her twenties. “We made requests for visits immediately.” The “close-knit” family would not get their first visit until after three weeks. A period during which many questions arose. One in particular: Did Cyril D. know that Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged?
In the visiting room, “his first words were to my mother. He told us ‘it’s not true, it’s not that, it’s not that, it’s not that'”, the young woman continued. Described as a “large build” by his family, the man lost 15 kilos. “He told us that he knew right away why he had been arrested because he had seen the media (the Mazan rape case was already publicly known, Editor’s note), but if he hadn’t seen them, he wouldn’t have known why he was being arrested.”
Cyril D. then wants to know if his family supports him. “I had a lot of empathy,” Valérie breathes, then Erica completes, her mother being too moved.
“He would tell her, ‘Don’t leave me, stay with me,'” she recalled. “She would tell him that wasn’t the most important thing, that the most important thing was to get him out of prison.”
Valérie ended up no longer having any doubts about her partner over the course of their meetings in the visiting room. “He never forced me, he always respected me,” insists the accused’s wife. Moreover, she assures that the couple was very united, that they spent their time together. Cyril D’s suicide attempt two weeks after his incarceration finally convinced them. “It was because of the guilt towards Gisèle Pelicot,” her daughter wants to believe. “The guilt of not having known, for this thing that he did in spite of himself, he didn’t want to do that to her.”
“A life that is falling apart” for these women
Valérie and her daughter are not the only ones to come and show their support to their loved one who has been on trial since September 2. In front of the courtroom, a woman also says she believes in her husband’s innocence. “No matter the sentence, he’s our father, we need him,” the son of another accused also whispers in the dock.
Me Crépin-Dehaene is defending two accused, married before the events, whom she describes as “unfaithful victims”. “The women, the sons, the daughters are not responsible for anything. They too suffer”, she is keen to point out.
“My clients’ wives tell me ‘he’s a good man, we’ve been together for years, we had children but there was this huge jerk (Dominique Pelicot)’. There’s anger towards him.’
“We tried to understand how our father had gotten to this point,” Erica confirms. “We don’t deny the fact that he should have realized (that Gisèle Pelicot was drugged). But it was prepared, the introduction that was made was that of a libertine couple. He arrived at a house, it’s in the dark. When he closes the door, he realizes that Dominique Pelicot has a perverted face. But he had come to have relations… and he doesn’t turn back. He’s caught up in the spiral. Afterwards, apart from keeping quiet, what did you want him to do?”
A psychological expert considered that Cyril D. was not “sexually deviant but that the barrier of prohibitions gave way very easily in relation to his impulsiveness, his desire.”
Mr. Biscarrat is also defending two other defendants. Despite the charges, “the wife of one of my clients always knew that it was not rape”, “she manages to accept that he was set up”, assures the lawyer, describing a “vaguely libertine” couple in the past – hence what he presents as a certain “permissiveness” in their relationship.
For psychiatrist Christine Barois, a specialist in stress, anxiety and depression, The reaction of these women can be explained by “several mechanisms that come into play”. “Mechanisms, which according to (her) experience, are similar to the reaction of mothers who witness incest.”
“There is denial because you have to think the unthinkable, you have to think about emotional but also financial dependence (towards their spouse),” she explains. “There is an arrangement with the monstrous reality that has to be put in place.”
The specialist recalls that it is “an existence that collapses for these women”. “There is also a cognitive dissonance that can manifest itself to make something acceptable coexist with something unacceptable. In short, the person says to themselves ‘everything that adheres to my thesis I see, everything that does not adhere, I do not see’.” The trial stage could, according to Dr. Barois, “make room in their minds to accept the unacceptable”.
“Guilty of cheating on me”
Me Crépin-Dehaene confirms. If the wife of one of the accused she is defending has stayed, “there will always be a trace”. “There is infidelity but with the very serious consequences that it has on the victim”, she notes. “At the next clash, it is certain that it will come out. There is a deep wound.”
“He is guilty of cheating on me, but not the rest,” Valérie whispers for now. “I am a woman, I do not condone any criminal act against anyone,” her daughter chants.
When questioned, mother and daughter obviously assure that they think of Gisèle Pelicot and have “empathy” for her. Valérie and Erica assure that they have received support from some people in their village. “We were also looked at askance. Many people asked me why I didn’t throw him out. But no, I didn’t want him to end up on the street, with nothing left. He didn’t deserve that.”
Today, Valérie is separated from her partner. Even though she “has a lot of affection for him”, the weight of the case, the consequences for Cyril D., the stays in psychiatric hospitals, were too much for her to bear. Mother and daughter are not demanding an acquittal but an appropriate sentence. “We are asking that we not make a generality. That the monsters be punished”, they say in unison.
