AVIGNON, France — A 71-year-old French man admitted in court Tuesday that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed.
In a trial that has gripped France and raised new awareness about sexual violence, Dominique Pélicot told the court that he also raped his wife Gisèle Pélicot, who has since divorced him, and that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,″ Dominique Pélicot testified. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Pélicot’s testimony marked the most important moment yet in a trial that has shocked the world. Although he previously confessed to investigators, his court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of his co-defendants, many of whom deny having raped Gisèle Pélicot, saying her then-husband had manipulated them or that they believed she was consenting.
Many following the case also hope his testimony might help explain why Dominique Pélicot would subject his wife of 50 years and the mother of his three children to such unconscionable abuse.
Gisèle Pélicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media. She is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband’s testimony.
After days of delay due to what his lawyers said was a kidney stone and urinary tract infection, Dominique Pélicot, seated in a wheelchair, acknowledged to the court that the charges against him are true. With his ex-wife looking on from the packed gallery, he testified for an hour, his voice trembling and barely audible at times as he tried to explain childhood traumas that he said scarred and molded him into the person he became.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pélicot told judges after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male hospital nurse when he was 9 years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.
Pélicot said when he was 14, he asked his mother if he could move out, but “she didn’t let me.”
“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.
Asked about his feelings toward his ex-wife, Pélicot said she didn’t deserve what he did.
“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her,” he said in tears.
At that moment, Gisèle Pélicot, standing across the room from her ex-husband with dozens of his co-defendants between them, put on her sunglasses.
Later, Dominique Pélicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”
A security guard caught Pélicot in 2020 secretly shooting videos up women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. During a search of his house and electronic devices, police found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisèle Pélicot while she appeared to be unconscious in bed.
With the recordings, police were able to track down most of the 72 suspects they were seeking.
When the Pélicots retired, they moved from the Paris region to a house in Mazan, a small town in the Provence region.
When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy,″ according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left and later divorced her husband.
He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. His co-defendants range in age from 26 to 74.
Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pélicot has been brought into the court through a special entrance that’s inaccessible for the media, because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial. Defendants who are not in custody have been arriving at the courthouse wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.
Among those hoping to secure a seat to watch the Tuesday’s proceedings was Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, where the trial is taking place. She arrived outside the courthouse at 7:15 a.m. to make sure she would get inside.
“How is it possible that in 50 years of communal life, one can live next to someone who hides his life so well? This is scary,” she said while standing in line. “I don’t have much hope that what he did can be explained, but he is at least going to give some elements.”