The final submissions to the Mazan rape trial are expected this Wednesday, November 27. The defense must then begin its pleadings. It is the lawyer of the main accused who should speak first. A moment followed in particular in Indre, where the main accused, Dominique Pélicot, and his victim, his wife Gisèle, grew up. The newspaper La Nouvelle République had already reported this. We were able to trace the thread of this childhood and adolescence spent in Indre.
The childhood of Dominique Pélicot at the Oublaise estate
The Pélicot family arrived in Indre at the end of the 1950s, at the Oublaise estate, in Luçay-le-Mâle. This place became a refuge for veterans, then for former prisoners and alcoholics. Dominique Pélicot's father heard about the project of its founder, Commander Pérette, during a radio broadcast, presented by Pierre Bellemare. Convinced, he takes his whole family with him, and becomes foreman at the Oublaise estate. Dominique Pélicot was then 7 years old. He goes to the Écueillé school. From this time, he says he has rather good memories, even if he already evokes a certain form of violence on the part of his father.
Two episodes of rape mentioned by Dominique Pélicot
His first trauma occurred about a year later. Dominique Pélicot claims to have been raped by a caregiver at Châteauroux hospital. An episode contested during the trial by his own brotherJoël Pélicot, doctor in Indre-et-Loire, now retired. He gives no credence to this story, any more than to another episode recounted by the main accused in the Mazan rape trial: that of a gang rape on a construction site in Châtillon-sur-Indre. Dominique Pélicot was then a teenager, an apprentice electrician in a company. He says he was included in this rape episode against his will; he was allegedly forced to participate. This is also contested by a former apprentice in the same company that we found. He was an apprentice with Dominique Pélicot in the years 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. He was not present during this gang rape, but what he was told at the time was rather that Dominique Pélicot participated in a more voluntary manner than what he later testified to, with two other men, about a vulnerable woman.
Ceformer co-apprentice of Dominique Pélicot discovered with astonishment that he knew the main accused of the Mazan rapes shortly before the trial opened. “We did a bit of our personal investigation, because initially there were only his initials” he explains. His partner, like Gisèle Pélicot from Azay-le-Ferron, was also intrigued, even if she did not know the victim. “We followed all the episodes in the evening one thing leading to another,” says her husband, about the trial. “We ask ourselves questions (…), this poor woman went through hell” adds her wife. “She was very upright, she was wonderful, to stand her ground like that during the trial” concludes the former co-apprentice of Dominique Pélicot.
The Pélicot family lived in Châtillon-sur-Indre during the adolescence of the main accused of the Mazan rapes. Dominique Pélicot's father also lived there until his death. A former neighbor still remembers them, she was between 5 and 6 years old, when they lived on their farm in La Thibaudière. “I have nothing to tell you, it was years ago” she slips, preferring to remain silent. She also followed the trial closely, “like everyone else” she adds.
The meeting of Gisèle and Dominique Pélicot in Azay-le-Ferron
In Azay-le-Ferron, where Dominique Pélicot settled once he had his electrician qualification, residents are rarer to remember him, or Gisèle who grew up in the town. Among the old people we met in the streets of this small town of 850 inhabitants, none knew them. They discovered in the press that the couple had ties to Azay-le-Ferron. This is where Dominique Pélicot met Gisèle, “love at first sight” he said. The couple married in 1973before moving.
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