Absent for health reasons for eight days from the Vaucluse criminal court, where 51 accused are being tried for aggravated rape, Dominique Pelicot, 71, a central figure in this extraordinary case, was finally able to explain himself on Tuesday, September 17, where he spoke at great length. He appeared in complete control, intent on controlling the course of the hearing and the answers to his opponents’ questions. But between his dark side and his stated desire for sincerity, where does the truth lie?
He sits in the center of the box, seated on a blue chair prescribed by the doctors, facing a packed, overheated room, hanging on his every word. And he delivers his truths. Merciless towards his co-accused. “I am a rapist, like those in this room. They knew everything, they can’t say otherwise.”
Much more lenient with himself
He is much more lenient with himself when he traces the path of his life and insists on the sexual traumas that are said to have triggered what he calls “perversity”. Because he is convinced of it: “We are not born perverts. We become perverts.” And he explains it: “All that added up is a lot. I’m not looking for excuses, but these are facts. If I hadn’t had these troubles, I would have been the same boy, but happy.”
The “trouble” is the rape he says he suffered at the age of 9 in the hospital in Châteauroux, by a man in a white coat. “It started with caresses and then pain and a lot of other things. I didn’t understand.” Five years later, this other rape, a gang rape, of “a little handicapped girl”, in which he was allegedly forced to participate, on a building site, and which he recounts with sobs that seem very appropriate.
“We’re going to deflower you”
“They came to grab me by the collar, they’re going to deflower you. I arrived on a scene where a woman was being subjected to other men. They put my nose on her sex, I still have the smell today, I went to throw up.” Added to this are images of his parents, caught, he says, by chance. “During the holidays, in Agde, in Hérault, one evening I got up and saw my mother forced to do certain things and a little later, I was almost 14, I came home earlier than expected, I heard a noise, and I came across this scene, mother, submissive, with a blindfold, hands tied behind her back, taken with dirty words… What else can I say?”
“I lasted forty years”
For him, the explanation is there. “It was too hard to bear. I held out for forty years” before giving in to devastating temptations. “What I experienced is preponderant in my story. Even if it is paradoxical, I never considered my wife as an object. Unfortunately, the videos prove the opposite.”
The lawyer of one of his co-defendants: “When do you become a pervert?” Dominique Pelicot: “You become one from the moment you are given the opportunity. And then there is the internet. And there…”
A dosage given by a nurse on coco.fr
It was around 2010, according to him, that he got lost on Coco.fr, where an Internet user presenting himself as a nurse gave him the dosage to put Gisèle, his wife, to sleep. “He contacted me several times, he showed me photos of his wife with several men and it’s true that at that moment, it started. Everything started from there.”
But nothing fits in this story, as the lawyer of a co-accused says, recalling that he admitted to an attempted rape committed in 1999, where his DNA was found. He is also indicted for a murder, in 1991 in Paris, investigated by the cold case unit of Nanterre. Me Zavarro protests: “He will not answer any questions about 1999.”
“In Nanterre, they want to make me wear the hat”
Dominique Pelicot himself mentioned it a little earlier. “In Nanterre, they want to make me wear the hat. There is no evidence against me.”
There is evidence here, the file is full of it. Photos, videos of the rapes inflicted on Gisèle. Why did you keep everything? “First, there is an element of pleasure. It is perversity and vice, but also a striking element to remind me of certain people.” And to protect against possible blackmail attempts, he assures.
Photos of his sleeping daughter
But there are also the deleted photos of Caroline, his daughter, asleep, in her panties, and this empty file, restored by the investigators and entitled “My naked daughter.”
“Caroline, I never drugged you or raped you.” he says to her. She shakes her head, as if to show that she doesn’t believe it. “What do I have to do to be believed? Cut off my arm?” Mr. Camus: “Why did you delete these photos?” Pelicot: “There comes a time when we are ashamed of what we have done.” His daughter gets up and leaves the room.. “Excuse me, I’m going to puke!” Outside: “I want to kill him!” She comes back. Mr. Camus to the accused:“Are you the one who took these photos of your daughter lying down?” Dominique Pelicot, straight away: “It’s not me. Neither of them.” Caroline, indignant: “You’re lying! You’re lying!”Resumes this Wednesday.
