Florian, David and Caroline, the three children of the Pelicot couple, will speak on Monday at the resounding trial of a decade of rapes organized against Gisèle Pelicot, a woman drugged by her husband in France.
AFP
Before their hearing, scheduled for the beginning of the afternoon, the criminal court of Vaucluse (south) began its eleventh week of hearing Monday morning with the interrogation of the last four of the 51 accused aged 26 to 74, prosecuted for most of them for having raped Gisèle Pelicot, 71 years old, previously sedated with anxiolytics by her now ex-husband, who also raped her.
“It’s going to be complicated but we remain combative with my brother. I take this opportunity with this microphone to thank all those who support us in this trial and tell them that this support is really essential,” David Pelicot, the eldest son, declared to the press on Monday during the interruption of session at 12:00 p.m. (11:00 a.m. GMT).
If Florian and his ex-wife Aurore were present from the start of the day, at 9:00 a.m. (08:00 GMT), Caroline, David and his wife Céline arrived mid-morning. Gisèle Pelicot was expected at the beginning of the afternoon.
Unlike Florian and David, Caroline had been heard from the first week of the trial, like her two sisters-in-law. Images of the three naked women, taken without their knowledge, had been published by Dominique Pelicot on social networks, as well as photomontages of a pornographic nature.
Caroline believes she was also drugged by her father, with the nagging doubt that she too was raped in her sleep.
But Dominique Pelicot, the man she now calls her “progenitor”, has always denied these facts: “It will be one of my objectives, to make him speak on this and to tell the truth”, confided to AFP his lawyer Béatrice Zavarro.
Monday morning, Joseph C., 69-year-old retiree, was the first to speak on the stand, about his visit, the night of June 9 to 10, 2020, to the Pelicot home in Mazan (south). He is on trial for “sexual assault” for touching Gisèle Pelicot, and not for rape, for failure to have been able to penetrate her in the absence of an erection.
“Lack of discernment”
It was “a bit murky and it was difficult to get an erection. I just gave a ‘libertine’ caress and left,” explained this single fan of swinging.
That night, he was present at the same time as another accused, Romain V., who came six times between 2019 and 2020 to sexually assault Gisèle Pelicot, sedated and totally inert, as a new video further attests. projected to the audience.
After him, Nicolas F., a 43-year-old independent journalist, admitted, in a fluid and clear voice, to having “lacked discernment and strength of character” during that night of January 14 to 15, 2018. Thursday, the expert-psychologist Laurent Chaïb had defined it as an “obsessive-compulsive personality”, those people who “tend to think after the fact” and who “operate in automatic mode” under pressure.
Explaining that he had gone to Mazan “for a relationship with Mr. Pelicot”, on whom he would perform fellatio, he nevertheless attacked Gisèle Pelicot with several touches but also digital penetration and rimming.
Also tried for possession of child pornography images, Nicolas F. also allegedly offered to “relieve” her labrador to a young girl, according to an email from 2010. “It’s not me. (…) I am not attracted to zoophilia or scatophilia,” he assured.
After the hearings of the Pelicot children, late Monday afternoon or even Tuesday, the court should examine the files of the last two accused, Philippe L., a 62-year-old gardener, and Boris M., an employee in a transport company. 37 years old.
Then President Arata should give the floor one last time to Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot.
Probably from Wednesday, there will then be the pleadings of the lawyers of the civil parties, then of the two representatives of the public prosecutor, for an indictment initially planned over two days.
The floor will finally be given to the lawyers of the 51 accused, for three weeks.
There will then be one week left for the court’s five professional magistrates to deliberate, with a verdict expected on December 20 at the latest.
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