Expert Philippe Darbourg also did not detect “deviant or perverse tendencies” in these men, aged 30 to 69. However, two defendants are also being prosecuted for possession of child pornography images.
Is there a typical rapist profile? Objective criteria allowing us to assess that a person is capable of taking action? On November 7, expert psychiatrist Laurent Layet delivered his analysis before the Vaucluse criminal court, observing that “most of the accused do not have the criminological profile of serial rapists”. However, they cannot be “categorized as ordinary men”given that “the act itself moves the individual into another category”. Laurent Layet, who examined half of the 51 accused in the Mazan rape trial, clarified that assessing the dangerousness of a person remained an exercise “extremely complex”.
The subject returned to the center of debate on Wednesday, November 13, during the psychiatric assessments of the last seven defendants in the trial, carried out by Dr. Philippe Darbourg. This 75-year-old expert, including forty expert opinions for the courts, did not detect in any of these men, aged 30 to 69, “deviant or perverse tendencies”. Two of these defendants, Christian L. and Nicolas F., are also being prosecuted for possession of child pornography images.
The president of the Vaucluse criminal court transmitted this information to him, to which the expert clearly did not have access at the time of his examination. “Could this change your observations?”the magistrate asks him about Nicolas F., a former local press journalist in Vaucluse, where investigators found more than 200 videos featuring minors. “It confirms the notion of uncertain sexuality, with exploratory behavior”replies the expert laconically.
Another conclusion of the psychiatrist, common to the seven accused: none appears “like a sexual abuser.” To say the least doubtful, Stéphane Babonneau, one of Gisèle Pelicot's lawyers, worked to question this analysis, at the end of each of the seven expert opinions. “Is it necessary to have a history of identified frustration to be defined as a sexual abuser?” he asks, observing “men who, day after day, say: 'I am not a rapist,' as if a rapist were riddled with passions, obsessions.”
The expert explains relying on “clinical elements” et “psychological dispositions, even pathologies” to define the possible profile of said “abuser”. “I didn’t find any.” in these seven men, he repeats.
“This notion appears to me to be outdated and perhaps even dangerous.”
Stéphane Babonneau, one of Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyersbefore the Vaucluse criminal court
“If in our case we did not have these videos, the case would come down to word against word, and your conclusion would be an important argument for the defense,” points out Stéphane Babonneau at the end of the sixth expertise. “She would say, 'See, the expert says it, he's not a sexual abuser.'”he adds.
Questioned relentlessly by the civil party's counsel, the psychiatrist ended up providing a nuance, recognizing that he would undoubtedly have “had to clarify that we were not dealing with sexual predators, but with men who, in very specific circumstances, committed sexual abuse”.
He ends his testimony with the expertise of Charly A., 30 years old, accused of having come six times to the home of the Pelicot couple, between January 2016 and June 2020. Stéphane Babonneau returns to the charge, noting that the psychiatrist linked the notion “sexual abuser” with “the repetition of facts”. “How can we conclude that he does not appear to be a sexual abuser in any way?”he insists.
“He does not appear to systematically seek out situations of sexual assault like a sexual attacker,” advances the expert. “Six times isn’t that recurring?”annoys the victim's counsel. “These are six times in very particular conditions: he had difficulty realizing his responsibility”, considers the psychiatrist, noting that the young man told him “having belatedly understood that Dominique Pelicot had put his wife to sleep”.
His analysis echoes that of one of his colleagues, Dr François Amic, who testified before this same court, believing that the 10 accused he examined were undoubtedly manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “In my opinion, there was a lie: Mr. Pelicot did not tell anyone that his wife was drugged,” affirmed the psychiatric expert in early October, firmly opposing the idea that the accused would have gone to Mazan knowing that the victim was drugged. “I think most of those involved were fascinated, a bit in a daze,” he argued, sparking a wave of disapproval from the civil party, as well as from Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot's lawyer.
