The eldest of the Pelicot couple's three children testified before the Vaucluse criminal court on Monday, November 18, as part of the trial where his father, Dominique, is accused of having raped and orchestrated rapes against his mother, Gisèle.
It was a poignant face-to-face which took place in the courtroom of the Vaucluse criminal court this Monday, November 18. As part of the Mazan rape trial, David Pelicot, the eldest son of Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot, returned to the accusations of his sister, Caroline, who is certain to have also been drugged and raped by her father.
Doubt also hangs over acts that could have been committed against his own son, Nathan.
“I am waiting for you to tell the truth about the actions you have had on my sister who suffers every day and who will suffer all her life,” David Pelicot harshly cried out. “About my son, that’s the big question… If you have a little humanity left, tell us what you did to my son and my sister.”
“What do I expect from this trial? That the decisions taken are commensurate with our suffering. That these men and this man in this box (his father, Editor's note) be punished for the horrors and atrocities committed on my mother “, he also said, wearing a black turtleneck and a dark jacket.
Dominique Pelicot denies any action against his daughter and grandson
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything to anyone,” Dominique Pelicot replied from his box before his son silenced him. An exchange which resulted in a call for calm from the judge.
David Pelicot criticizes his father in particular for having taken photos of his sister – crying in the courtroom – “in more than subjective positions”.
“I maintain, I cannot admit to something that I did not do. If I took photos of Caroline, it is because they were asked of me as blackmail,” justified the septuagenarian installed in his box, on a stage and in a chair due to his health problems. “I ask you to accept my apologies.”
“Never!” David Pelicot retorted. Before assuring his sister: “We will always be there for you”. Throughout his testimony, the couple's eldest son pointed to his father with distance, calling him “this gentleman” before the Avignon court.
A “disappeared” and “erased” childhood
“Since November 2, 2020, our family life has been destroyed. We experienced a huge tsunami,” he recalled, referring to the day his mother, Gisèle, called him to reveal the actions of Dominique Pelicot.
In a firm voice, he then described his arrival, with his brother and sister, in Avignon, where they found “a frail, fragile woman”, in his words to describe his mother. He also detailed the discovery of the videos, the moving of Mazan's house, where they got rid of “everything that links us to this man”.
“I lost a man who, like my mother, gave me a good education, values, a backbone,” he continued. I lost a lot of complicity, sharing, we both had a passion for sport.”
“My father no longer exists”
“My father no longer exists, I had to mourn his loss. My whole childhood has disappeared, it has been erased,” said David Pelicot, whose resemblance to the accused was nevertheless striking on the stand.
As a preamble, the one who is a sales promoter in life wanted to thank “all the police personnel, who carried out the investigations into this terrible family affair”. “If mom (Gisèle Pelicot, Editor’s note) is in this room and there is this trial, it is partly thanks to them,” he judged.
In the process, the third child of the siblings, Florian also spoke on the stand. “How do we build ourselves as a son when we ourselves are a father, what are the instructions?”, he asked, addressing his father and then comparing him to the “devil”.
Justine Chevalier and Mélanie Bertrand with Gabriel Joly
