The trial of Dominique Pelicot, a man who orchestrated a nine-year campaign of abuse by drugging his wife before inviting dozens of men to rape her, has disgusted and captivated France since it began on Monday.
Over the past two days, the court heard how Pelicot, 71, sent a torrent of depraved messages to willing participants in a seedy chat room, telling those who accepted the invitation to abuse his wife: “You’re like me, you like rape mode.”
The court also saw 50 men parade before the dock, all of them being tried alongside the deranged mastermind for aggravated rape.
But Mr Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, has already provided a chilling account of her father’s atrocities in lengthy detail.
In her book titled ‘And I Stopped Calling You Dad’, Darian – a pseudonym – explains over 176 pages the ways in which her father cruelly manipulated, abused and destroyed the physical and mental health of his wife Gisele before his dark actions were finally uncovered in November 2020.
She writes how her father “dressed Maman like a low-priced prostitute” and forbade many of the men he invited into the family home from using condoms as they abused her unconscious mother, including one who even tested positive for HIV.
And she explained how she faced the reality that she too had been drugged by her own father, dressed in underwear and left in the fetal position while he took pictures with a camera.
Darian fled the courtroom in tears on Tuesday after those images were discussed in the middle of the trial.
Mr Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, has already provided a lengthy account of her father’s atrocities in chilling detail.
Gisele Pelicot, 72, arrives at the court in Avignon, France, on the morning of September 4.
Dominique Pelicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly for a decade until his arrest in 2020
Darian’s book, published in 2022 about a year and a half after her father’s crimes were revealed, chronicles the destruction of the Pelicot family as Gisele’s health was inexplicably failing.
Although some of the names were changed when the book was published, Darian gives a horrific account of how her father manipulated her mother and drugged her with powerful tranquilizers.
Darian’s book, published in 2022 about a year and a half after her father’s crimes were revealed, chronicles the destruction of the Pelicot family as Gisele’s health was inexplicably failing.
Extracts from his writings were already cited by the judge in the Avignon courtroom this week.
Writing about an incident in the summer of 2018, Darian recalls how her brother went to visit his parents for dinner and saw his mother practically asleep at the table.
“A few minutes after sitting down, Mom was rocking in her chair like she was drunk,” Darian says.
‘Suddenly, her whole body was drained of energy, like a rag doll.’
“That’s what happens. I’d better take her to bed,” her father is reported to have said, playing the role of a concerned husband acting in his wife’s best interest.
“Actually, the cocktail of drugs poured into her glass of rosé was just starting to take effect,” Darian said.
She goes on to write that Mr Pelicot dared to suggest his wife was having an affair when she complained of severe gynaecological problems and tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease.
Darian claimed that when Gisele told her husband she needed treatment for her unexplained illness, he asked her: “So what do you do with your days?”, accusing her of fooling around while he was playing pétanque or cycling in the foothills of Mont Ventoux.
She also explained how, despite having invited 72 men to the family home to do whatever they wanted with Gisele, her father never asked for money or tried to profit from this barbaric plan.
‘The greatest perversity… Dad, who always had money problems, did not benefit from Mom. He did it only for pleasure.’
Police found a file on Pelicot’s computer labeled “My naked daughter.” Pictured: Caroline Darian (left) in court during her father’s trial
Gisele Pelicot arrives at the courthouse on Monday for the trial of her husband Dominique, accused of drugging her for almost ten years and inviting 50 strangers to rape her at their home in the south of France.
Dominique Pelicot is accused of orchestrating the rape ring
Pelicot was first arrested in September 2020 to take pictures under the skirts of supermarket customers.
But it was only when police raided the retirement home he and Mrs Pelicot shared in the pretty Provençal village of Mazan that they learned the dark truth.
Investigators discovered more than 20,000 images and videos of Gisele being raped by 72 men, 51 of whom, including Pelicot, prosecutors were able to identify.
Her husband played the role of director and titled his films with labels such as ‘Her Rapists’, ‘Abuse’ and ‘My Slut’.
To ensure that Gisele was unconscious and had not consented to sex, as many of the arrested attackers claimed, investigators were forced to confront her with the sickening videos.
Darian explained in her book how her mother broke the news to the family.
“Your father is going to jail,” Gisele said bluntly in a phone call.
“Caro, it’s true… I had to look at some of the photos at the police station. I thought my heart would stop beating,” Darian quoted her mother as saying.
When Darian and his siblings rushed to the police station to speak to investigators, they were confronted with the horrifying reality of how their father had treated Gisele.
She explained how they saw a series of photographs, all taken by Mr Pelicot, of her mother lying face down, often in the foetal position, with a litany of strange men defiling her from behind.
When he asked one of the officers if his father had shown any remorse following his arrest and subsequent confession, the officer reportedly said: “No. His father simply thanked me for taking a burden off his shoulders.”
“Tell my father that I will never forgive him and that he ruined our lives,” Darian replied as he walked out of the station.
Some of the 50 co-defendants accused of rape speak to a lawyer in court in the case that has shocked France on Monday
The town of Mazan, 20 miles from Avignon in southern France, where the victim and her husband lived and where the attacks took place.
The discovery of her father’s twisted crimes tore the Pelicot family apart and irrevocably altered the course of each member’s life, Darian said.
She has described the ordeal, in her book and in several interviews with French media, as a “family cataclysm”, “an earthquake” and “an explosion”, adding that her once “boring but successful” life had been shattered.
“I had a husband, a son, a home and a job I loved… You don’t know the value of boredom until you lose it,” she wrote, adding that she suffered a nervous breakdown and was briefly confined to a psychiatric ward in the days after the facts about her father were revealed.
She was later forced to try to explain the situation to her young son, who had spent many happy days playing with his grandfather in the Pelicots’ lush green garden and family pool.
In addition to becoming a writer, Darian founded an association called ‘Don’t Put Me to Sleep’, which aims to raise awareness about drug-related crimes, including rape.
She also wrote that she has long been “haunted by the fear” that her father might have invited the men to rape her as well, adding: “I am convinced I was drugged, but he will never admit it.”
His father has admitted to manipulating and abusing his wife, but has denied abusing Darian.
“I never touched my daughter,” he told prosecutors.
The shocking trial, which began on Monday, is set to end on December 20 with 51 people, including Pelicot, facing charges of aggravated rape.