“For me, (this trial of the Mazan rapes) is the trial of an entire family, which has been totally destroyed,” asserted, in a firm tone, the eldest of the siblings, David, 50, in front of the court. Vaucluse criminal court, Monday afternoon: “And it is very complicated to explain to your children that they will not see their grandfather again.”
But “my family wants and will continue to fight and above all hopes that in the future, we can erase, make the man on my left disappear in our heads,” he continued, speaking of his father, Dominique Pelicot, sitting in the dock. Throughout his testimony, he described him as “this gentleman”.
A call for his sister and his son
“What I expect from this trial, […] it is that these men who are behind my back (Editor's note: the co-defendants), this man who is in this box, be punished for the horrors and atrocities that they committed on my mother”, insisted the fifty-year-old, before to speak directly to his father, straight in the eyes.
“If you still have a little humanity left, you hear? (I would like) you to tell the truth about the actions you had on my sister, who suffers every day and who will suffer all her life, because I think you will never tell the truth! »
Caroline, the couple's only daughter, considered herself “the forgotten one” in the trial, saying she was convinced that she too had been drugged and a victim of sexual assault by her father.
“And on my son too,” he added, referring to the exchanges between Dominique Pelicot and one of his grandchildren, whom he allegedly asked to “play doctor”.
“Nothing on any!” », replied his father.
Previously, David Pelicot had described “the tsunami” experienced by the family when, in the fall of 2020, they learned of their father’s actions. And how, in the space of two days, the children had moved all the belongings “from this house of horror” where the events occurred, to Mazan (Vaucluse).
“You were the devil himself”
“You said she was a saint, but you were the devil himself,” Florian said to his father, taking over from his elder at the helm. “We all fell from the 38th floor. Even today we ask ourselves questions,” he explained: “I have a lot of gratitude for still having my mother alive. But still a lot of misunderstanding about why he did that.”
Already heard in the first week of the trial, Caroline Darian (Editor's note: her pen name under which she published a book in April, “And I stopped calling you dad”) repeated that she was “trying to rebuild” because his life had been “on hold for four years”. She considered herself “the great forgotten one” of the trial, saying she was convinced that she too had been drugged and the victim of sexual assault at the hands of her father. “Gisèle was raped under chemical submission, but the only difference between her and me is the lack of evidence concerning me. For me, it’s an absolute tragedy,” she explained.
Caroline Darian – pen name of Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter – testified about her fight against chemical submission as well as her nagging doubts about what her father did or did not do to her.
CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
Because 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 that she had also been raped in her sleep. Facts that Dominique Pelicot persisted in denying on Monday.
“The historic trial of chemical submission”
After attending the first weeks of the hearing, in September, Caroline returned to the Paris region, where she works and lives: “I asked to return to the clinic, to hope to find inner peace, because I know that I cannot will never have my answers. […] You will never have enough love for your daughter,” she told 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,” she insisted.
“If I manage to get through it, it’s because I am committed through my association” to help victims of chemical submission, “because the Gisèle Pelicots are 1% of the victims,” according to her.
“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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