The moving testimony of Gisèle Pelicot's daughter, Caroline Darian: “The only difference between her and me is the lack of evidence”

Caroline Darian announced it on Saturday, October 26, on her Instagram account, when she wrote that she was returning to the clinic to rest during the one-week suspension of the Mazan rape trial. Gisèle Pélicot's daughter wanted to take some time for herself, before coming back “in full swing”, she assured. Visibly in good shape, the daughter of Dominique Pelicot – the main accused in this case – testified on Monday November 18 before the Vaucluse criminal court, a few minutes after her brothers David and Florian.

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The 45-year-old woman considered herself “the great forgotten one” in the Mazan rape trial, saying she was convinced that she too had been drugged and raped by her father Dominique, like her mother Gisèle. “The only difference between her and me is the lack of evidence concerning me. For me, it is an absolute tragedy,” she explained. Caroline Darian repeated that she was “trying to rebuild herself” because her life had been “on hold for four years”.

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“You look at me incestuously”

As a reminder, in the fall of 2020, the couple's three children learned of this decade of rapes orchestrated by their father, on their mother, whom he drugged with anxiolytics to offer to dozens of men recruited on the internet. But, on the files stored in Dominique Pelicot's computer, investigators also discovered images of Caroline naked, taken without her knowledge. In some, she appears asleep, sometimes wearing her mother's feminine underwear. Since then, she has been “convinced” that she too was drugged by her father, with the nagging doubt of having also been raped in her sleep. Facts that Dominique Pelicot persisted in denying on Monday.

The one who created an association to support victims of chemical submission spoke directly to her father. “In your disgusting files, […] you don't look at me like a father looks at his daughter, but in an incestuous way. But you will never have the courage to tell the truth.” “For me this trial, […] it is also the historic trial of chemical submission in France. I work behind the scenes, I challenge the public authorities. But at what cost? That of my mental health, at the cost of my survival and my personal repair,” she said.

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“I will not give up, I am committed to the end: as long as we have not succeeded in obtaining measures (on this question of chemical submissions) in France, I will continue to mobilize on the ground,” concluded Caroline Darian.