Crime
French Woman Testifies in Shocking Rape Case Involving Husband and 50 Others in Avignon Trial
French woman, Gisèle Pélicot, testifies in a trial in Avignon, France, where her husband and 50 others are accused of raping her while she was drugged. Shocking case unfolds in public trial.
5 min read
Originally published by nationnews.com (opens in new tab)
A French woman who was raped by unknown men over 10 years after being drugged to sleep by her husband told a court of her horror at learning how she had been abused.
Gisèle Pélicot, who is 72, was giving evidence on day three of the trial in Avignon, south-east France, of 51 men – including her husband of 50 years, Dominique. All are accused of rape.
Documents before court indicate that Dominique Pélicot, 71, admitted to police that he got satisfaction from watching other men have sex with his unconscious wife.
Many defendants in the case contest the rape charge against them, claiming that they thought they were taking part in a consensual sex game.
But Gisèle Pélicot told the court she was “never complicit” in the sexual acts and had never pretended to be asleep.
This is a case that has shocked France, all the more so because the trial is being held in public.
Gisèle waived her right to anonymity to shift the “shame” back onto the accused, her legal team has previously said.
Taking the stand on Thursday, she said she was speaking for “every woman who’s been drugged without knowing it… so that no woman has to suffer.”
She recalled the moment in November 2020 when she was asked by police to attend an interview alongside her husband.
He had recently been caught taking under-skirt photographs of women at a supermarket, and Gisèle told the court she believed the meeting with police was a formality related to that incident.
“The police officer asked me about my sex life,” she told the court. “I told him I had never practised partner-swapping or threesomes. I said I was a one-man woman. I couldn’t bear any man’s hands on me other than my husband’s.
“But after an hour the officer said, ‘I am going to show you some things which you will not find pleasant’. He opened a folder and he showed me a photograph.
“I did not recognise either the man or the woman asleep on the bed. The officer asked: ‘Madame, is this your bed and bedside table?’
“It was hard to recognise myself dressed up in a way that was unfamiliar. Then he showed me a second photo and a third.
“I asked him to stop. It was unbearable. I was inert, in my bed, and a man was raping me. My world fell apart.”
Gisèle said that up until then their marriage had been generally happy, and she and her husband had overcome a number of financial and health-related difficulties. She said she had forgiven the upskirting after he promised her that it had been a one-off incident.
