Sentenced to 20 years Dominique Pelicot for aggravated rape and other crimes. The man was accused of having drugged his wife Gisele72 years old like him, for almost a decade with the aim of raping her and having her raped by dozens of men while she was in a state of unconsciousness. The sentence of the Avignon court was pronounced in his presence, and in front of his wife and their three children. Another 50 men were also convicted, while it is estimated that another thirty participated in the violence and managed to escape identification and trial.
Pelicot was then also found guilty of having recorded images of his daughter Caroline and her two granddaughters while they were asleep, naked or in underwear. “The deprivation of no longer seeing your family is worse than the deprivation of freedom. I want to tell all my family that I love them, you have the rest of my life in your hands,” the man said in court on Monday 16 December. The victim, meanwhile, has become a hero in public opinion for the courage with which she faced the rapists. In fact, it was she who wanted a public trial, complete with videos of the sexual violence shown in the courtroom and visible to all. “To be ashamed it must be themnot me,” he said.
“I’ve seen people get on the witness stand who denied rape and others who admitted it. I have a lot of problems with the banality of rape – said Gisèle Pelicot during one of her depositions -. At what moment, when you entered that room, did you have my consent? How could you not stop and report everything to the police? For me this trial is the trial of cowardice. It’s time for the chauvinist and patriarchal society, which trivializes rape, to change. It’s time to change the way we look at rape. My husband had many fantasies, not all of which were achievable with him. But why did it come to this? I think he wanted me and not anyone else. Since I didn’t want to go to a swingers’ club, he thought he had found the solution by putting me to sleep.”
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