Having come to rape Gisèle Pelicot six times, Jérôme V. puts forward “an uncontrollable sexuality”: “I don’t know how to say ‘no’ to Mr. Pelicot”
In full confinement, from March to June 2020, Jérôme V. went to Mazan six times to rape Gisèle Pelicot, previously drugged by her husband. Facts that he recognized but tried to justify on Wednesday by “uncontrollable sexuality”.
Published on 02/10/2024 at 18:22
“I could not control my sexuality,” Jérôme V., 46, declared Wednesday before the Vaucluse criminal court, to try to justify having come six times to the home of the Pelicot couple to rape Gisèle Pelicot, invitation from her husband.
“I didn’t go back because the ‘rape mode’ suited me but because I couldn’t control my sexuality,” declared this forty-year-old, former employee of a convenience store, one of the 51 accused at the Mazan rape trial. (Vaucluse), prosecuted for aggravated rape of the ex-wife of Dominique Pelicot.
From the opening of this emblematic trial of sexual violence and chemical submission, on September 2, in Avignon, this man, one of the 18 accused appearing detained, had admitted “in their entirety” the facts with which he is accused.
And when he went for the first time to Mazan, to the Pelicot home, in the spring of 2020, in full confinement in the face of Covid 19, just after a separation, it was because of his “overflowing sexuality”, a- he dared to explain: “I was unable to assert myself in front of Mr. Pelicot. I don’t know how to say ‘no’ to Mr. Pelicot,” he continues.
The main accused in this trial scheduled until December 20, Dominique Pelicot is accused of having drugged his wife with anxiolytics, before raping her and having her raped by dozens of strangers recruited on the internet, for ten years, between 2011 and 2020.
Mazan rape trial: “I was in the mood, I didn’t think she was drugged, I thought she was an accomplice”
Like the other co-defendants, Jérôme V. had met Dominique Pelicot on the site Coco.fr, which has since been closed by the courts.
“His mode of operation was to throw out photos (of his wife) in the process, to hope that it might cause a reaction,” he said. “And for a profile like mine,” it worked, said this competitive athlete, a fan of marathons and hiking.
“In my case, these photos had an impact. I wanted to get away from that, I was running away, I hoped that he would no longer contact me, but I did nothing to make it stop,” he conceded. And so he returned six times, between March 29 and June 19, 2020.
The very particular profile of certain accused of the Mazan rapes
“It’s complicated to tell you why I wasn’t able to say ‘this has to stop’. I was afraid of the impact, that he would distribute the photos” (Editor’s note: of him raping Ms. Pelicot), he added from the dock, under the nonchalant gaze of Dominique Pelicot.
Described as “weak”, “naive”, “not very assertive” and “not very assertive” by psychological experts, Jérôme V. felt that he had been “under the influence” of Dominique Pelicot.
