Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot speak one last time at the Mazan rape trial – rts.ch

“Since the start of this trial, I have heard a lot of inaudible, unacceptable things,” begins Gisèle Pelicot. On this 48th day of hearing in the Mazan serial rape trial, the Vaucluse criminal court gave him the floor one last time.

“But that’s how this trial was supposed to happen: I knew what I was going to be exposed to by refusing to go behind closed doors.” His intention was clear: for shame to change sides. “I have a lot of trouble when people say that it is practically commonplace to have raped Madame Pelicot,” notes the victim.

Her now ex-husband admitted to having handed her over for a decade to strangers he recruited on the internet, after plying her with anxiolytics.

Then in a firm voice, she supports her words: “I have seen individuals appear in court who deny rape (…) “There are few who take responsibility for their actions. They raped! I hear this gentleman saying ‘a finger is not rape’. Make him wonder!” she snapped.

We are in a macho, patriarchal society, where rape is trivialized.

“For me, it is the trial of cowardice (…) Society must open its eyes to the fact that we are in a macho, patriarchal society, where rape is trivialized.” The trial of cowardice: a term that the septuagenarian repeated three times, while her ex-husband remained headlong in the dock.

Questioned by several defense lawyers, Gisèle Pelicot once again firmly defended herself from having been “under the influence” or “manipulated” by her husband, during their 50 years of life together: “Absolutely nothing put me the flea in the ear”, she repeated.

“Mr. Pelicot had a lot of fantasies, all of which I couldn’t satisfy with him. (…) As I didn’t want to go to a swingers club, he said he found the solution by putting me to sleep. I I lost ten years of my life that I will never get back! This scar will never heal!”, she blurted out, barely holding back her anger.

She explains that she finds help through “psychotherapy, music, hours and hours and hours of walking, and chocolate too, my guilty pleasure”.

The main accused denies any action against his daughter and grandchildren

After a break, the hearing resumed with the reading of documents from the file, including the reports of the interrogations of Dominique Pelicot in two cases which took place in 1991 et 1999: he is indicted for a murder preceded by a rape in Paris and for an attempted rape with a weapon in Seine-et-Marne.

Dominique Pelicot then spoke and said he wanted to speak to his children whom he was seeing again for the first time in four years. The day before, David and Florian, the couple’s two sons, as well as Caroline, their daughter, had urged their father to tell the whole truth. “I measured the damage of annihilation, I bitterly regret it.” And he reiterates that he “never touched [ses] children nor [ses] grandchildren.”

>> Read also: Testimonies of Gisèle Pelicot’s children at the Mazan rape trial

The septuagenarian looks back on his youth then claims to have “had two gods in [sa] life”: his mother and Gisèle, whom he met in 1971. He affirms that she has “always been equal to herself, beneficent”.

Then, once again, he denies having taken the two naked photos of his daughter found on his computer, claiming not to remember having taken them: “At the point where I am, if I remembered them, I would tell her .I never touched her.”

You will die a lie and alone, Dominique Pelicot!

Words that provoke Caroline’s ire. In front of him, at the other end of the room, she says very angrily: “You’re lying! You’re not telling half the truth, even about your ex-wife!” Before yelling at him: “You will die a lie and alone, Dominique Pelicot!”

Wednesday will be reserved for the civil party’s pleadings. Then the hearing will be suspended until Monday, when the court will hear the requisitions.

Stéphanie Jaquet and the afp