Gisèle Pelicot case, ex-husband guilty of rape and sentenced to 20 years. Another fifty convicted

A French court on Thursday found Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband guilty of aggravated rape and all other charges against him. The verdict for Dominique Pelicot, 72, was read by the chief judge of the Avignon court, Roger Arata. The man was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum sentence requested by the prosecution.

Dominique Pelicot stood up and listened to the judge attentively, but without expressing any particular emotions. He is also found guilty of collecting images of his wife and daughter without their knowledge. The whole family is present this morning in the courtroom at the Palace of Justice in Avignon.

The woman’s ex-husband ended up on trial with around fifty men, all accused of sexual assault and also found guilty. The sentence against them is now awaited.

The ex-spouse admitted to having drugged Gisèle Pelicot, also now 72, for years, and then raped her together with strangers, many of whom were recruited online, filming the sexual abuse. The woman was unaware of all this violence for years. The couple lived in the municipality of Mazan, in the south of France. The ex-husband admitted in court that he had hidden the drugs in food and drinks several times, in order to stun his ex-wife so she could do what she wanted with them for hours.

The case: years and years of violence without the woman’s knowledge

The prosecution had asked for 20 years in prison, the maximum sentence, and sentences ranging between 10 and 18 years for most of the other defendants.

All the defendants are accused of taking part in Dominique Pelicot’s sordid fantasies of rape and abuse, enacted in the couple’s home but also elsewhere.

The group rapes came to light almost by chance, when Dominique Pelicot ended up in the police after a supermarket security guard caught him secretly filming under customers’ skirts. The agents then found over 20,000 photos and videos on his electronic devices which immortalized the abuse he made his wife suffer, unaware of everything that was happening to her.

The evidence allowed us to count 72 different attackers, but not all of them were identified by the investigators. Some of the accused admitted their guilt, but not all. Some tried to justify their behavior by insisting that they did not intend to rape anyone when they responded to their husband’s invitations to come to their home. Others blamed him, saying he tricked them into thinking they were engaging in consensual games.

The trial lasted over three months and the case had echoes far beyond national borders, with newspapers, websites and television stations from all over the world reporting on it.