French man who invited dozens of men over to rape wife Gisèle Pelicot found guilty, sentenced to 20 years in prison

AVIGNON, France – A French court on Thursday sentenced Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband to a maximum of 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to rape her while she was knocked out, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade.

The sentence against Dominique Pelicot was declared after he was found guilty of all charges against him. At age 72, that could mean he spends the rest of his life in prison.

The verdict was read out by the presiding judge at the court in Avignon, Roger Arata.

Arata read out verdicts one after the other against Pelicot and 50 other men, declaring “you are therefore found guilty of aggravated rape of Mme. Gisèle Pelicot” as he worked his way through the first names on the list.

Gisèle Pelicot sat on one side of the courtroom facing the defendants as Arata announced one guilty verdict after another.

The historic case has shaken France deeply in recent months.

Dominique Pelicot admitted he drugged his then-wife of 50 years for years so he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the abuse.

The horrific ordeal Gisèle Pelicot, now a 72-year-old grandmother, endured for almost a decade in what she thought was a loving marriage, and her courage during the bruising and stunning trial has turned the retired electricity company worker into a feminist hero the nation.

The trial, which spanned more than three months, inflamed anti-sexual violence campaigners and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.

Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men were tried in the southern French city of Avignon for aggravated rape and attempted rape and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors asked that he receive the maximum sentence and prison terms of 10 to 18 years for the others. They also requested four years in prison for another defendant who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault.

Of the 50 men accused of rape, only one was acquitted, but was found guilty of gross sexual assault.

The defendants were all accused of taking part in Dominique Pelicot’s sordid rape and abuse fantasies, which played out in the couple’s nursing home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.

Dominique Pelicot testified that he hid sedatives in food and drink that he gave his then-wife and knocked her out so deeply that he could do whatever he wanted to her for hours.

One of the men was charged, not with assaulting Gisèle Pelicot, but with drugging and raping his own wife – with the help and drugs of Dominique Pelicot, who was also accused of raping the other man’s wife.

The five judges voted by secret ballot in their decisions, requiring a majority to convict and also for the sentences of those found guilty.

Campaigners against sexual violence hope for exemplary prison sentences and see the trial as a possible turning point in the fight against rape culture and the use of drugs to subdue victims.

Gisèle Pelicot’s courage to waive her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully push for the hearings and shocking evidence – including videos – to be heard in open court has fueled conversations both at the national level in France and among families, couples and groups of friends about how to better protect women and the role men can play in pursuing this goal.

“Men are starting to talk to women – their girlfriends, mothers and friends – in ways they hadn’t before,” said Fanny Foures, 48, who joined other women from the feminist group Les Amazones in pasting messages of support for Gisèle Pelicot on. walls around Avignon before the judgment.

“It was awkward at first, but now real dialogues are happening,” she said.

“Some women realize, perhaps for the first time, that their ex-husband violated them or that someone close to them committed abuse,” Foures added. “And men start to reckon with their own behavior or complicity – things they’ve ignored or failed to act on. It’s heavy, but it creates change.”

A large banner that campaigners hung on a city wall opposite the courthouse read “MERCI GISELE” – thank you Gisèle.

Dominique Pelicot first came to the attention of the police in September 2020 when a supermarket security guard caught him surreptitiously filming women’s skirts.

Police subsequently found his library of homemade images documenting years of abuse inflicted on his wife – more than 20,000 images and videos in total, stored on computer drives and cataloged in folders labeled “abuse”, “her rapists”, “night alone” and others titles.

The abundance of evidence led the police to the other defendants. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different addicts, but were unable to identify them all.

Although some of the accused – including Dominique Pelicot – admitted they were guilty of rape, many did not, even in the face of video evidence.

The hearings sparked a wider debate in France about whether the country’s legal definition of rape should be expanded to include specific mention of consent.

Some defendants argued that Dominique Pelicot’s consent also covered his wife.

Some sought to excuse their behavior by insisting that they had not intended to rape anyone when they responded to the man’s invitations to come to their home.

Some laid the blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were participating in consensual kink.