The trial of a French man who drugged his wife and invited dozens of men to rape her over more than a decade was dramatically jeopardized this morning when he was rushed to hospital for treatment of unexplained abdominal pain.
Judge Roger Arata announced that the defendant, Dominique Pelicot, 71, was receiving medical care after he was due to testify today in the sex trial that has shocked France.
There will be “updates on his health status” as the matter has been resolved, the judge said, but it is technically possible to avoid a trial in France due to his extreme poor health.
Arata said other witnesses would be heard until Pelicot was fit enough to be questioned, meaning the trial, which is scheduled to last four months, could continue.
But despite her absence from court today, Pelicot’s daughter Caroline Payronnet, 45, burst into tears this morning after hearing graphic accounts of her mother’s abuse.
Peyronnet was led away from the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon as a police detective described in excruciating detail how her father, Dominique Pelicot, had arranged for more men to rape her mother.
Gisele Pelicot, who was allegedly drugged and raped by men at the request of her husband Dominique Pelicot, enters the courthouse in Avignon, France, on September 10.
Mrs Pelicot, 72, was supported by her sons Florian (left) and David (right). The sons will testify today
Pelicot’s daughter Caroline arrived at the Avignon court this morning to support her mother. She burst into tears after hearing graphic details of the abuse her mother was subjected to.
Dominique Pelicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over a 10-year period
Police investigator Stephan Gal told the court how Pelicot had recruited dozens of men via the internet to come to his marital home in a village near Avignon and abuse his wife while she lay unconscious between 2011 and 2020.
The retired electrician has already admitted to putting powerful sedatives in his wife Gisèle’s dinner and rosé wine for almost a decade to render her unconscious.
Police also found sickening photographs of Caroline and her two daughters-in-law in a haul of around 200,000 images and videos he kept in a computer file titled ‘abuse’.
Some 84 men she had met in a popular internet chat room took turns sneaking into her modest chalet in a village near Avignon to rape her in the marital bed.
But Pelicot, apparently a loving husband and devoted father of three who had moved to the south of France to retire, blames his wife and the police for ruining his idyllic life in Provence.
He told psychologists that his wife was to blame for his actions because she refused to go swinging with him.
Psychologist Annabelle Montagne testified yesterday morning before the Avignon court that she interviewed Pelicot in December 2020, a month and a half after his arrest, where he admitted to having carried out the campaign of abuse against his wife Gisele.
‘Pelicot said: ‘My wife and I had an argument about swinging, but she didn’t agree, so I drugged her,’ the psychologist said.
Madame Montagne claimed that Pelicot maintained that he loved his wife, but added: “He sees his partner as an object to satisfy his sexual and narcissistic needs. His wife is then a partial object and no longer a total love object.”
This comes after another prison psychologist told the court yesterday that Pelicot had a “split personality”, lacked empathy and inherited the temper of his father, who was said to be a violent abuser.
During interviews following his arrest in September 2020, Pelicot maintained that the sickening abuse of his 50-year-old wife, Gisele, would have continued had he not been arrested.
Mr Pelicot admitted to putting powerful sedatives in his wife Gisèle’s dinner and rosé wine for almost a decade to render her unconscious.
Madame Pelicot’s son Florian will testify today
Madame Pelicot’s son, David, is also scheduled to testify today, but it is unclear whether his father will be well enough to appear in court and give evidence today.
Psychologist Marianne Douteau told the court yesterday how her client regretted his arrest, complaining that the case against him had ruined his life and that he and his wife could have continued in a happy marriage if his misdeeds had not been discovered. ‘(Pelicot) complains that this criminal case against him has destroyed his life.
“He says that everything could have continued as before if he had not been arrested. ‘Gisele would not have found out anything, we would have continued being happy,'” he says.
Meanwhile, Pelicot’s father Denis was said to be a violent wife beater who sent his son to work from the age of 14 and pocketed 80 percent of his wages. His parents also took in a girl, who Denis is said to have abused.
The psychologist concluded that Pelicot had inherited a personality similar to that of her father: angry, stubborn and impulsive.
She said: ‘Dominique Pelicot comes from a troubled family where young children were abused.
‘(Pelicot) has a two-faced personality: he is a patriarch, but he is also irresponsible and manipulative. Behind closed doors he respects no boundaries.
‘He has a personality divided between the person he wants to be and the person he is.
“He doesn’t show any empathy, but he’s not inauthentic (in his expressions of love towards his wife),” he concluded.
The psychologist also explained how Pelicot admitted that he was very sexually demanding and that he usually looked for sex on the Internet.
He told her: ‘I went online every day and constantly visited sites that offered wife swapping.’
Madame Pelicot is determined that the public should know that she played no part in her husband’s twisted sexual fantasies which he played out in their picturesque chalet-house in the Provençal village of Mazan (pictured).
Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Beatrice Zavarro, told Judge Roger Arata that she needed urgent treatment for abdominal pain.
Pelicot is expected to testify this afternoon before the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon.
The frail 71-year-old grandfather of seven was excused from court yesterday after his lawyer, Beatrice Zavarro, told Judge Roger Arata he needed urgent treatment for abdominal pain.
But today dozens of citizens queued up to see the Monster of Avignon give his testimony in front of his wife Gisele and his children David, Caroline and Florian.
However, as the court session opened, Judge Arata announced that the main defendant, Pelicot, was still seriously ill and needed medical attention.
It is not yet clear whether Pelicot will be well enough to appear in court and testify today.
In Madame Pelicot’s statement, the couple’s only daughter, Caroline Peyronnet, told the court last week how her world fell apart when her mother called her to inform her of their crimes.
Her agony was compounded when detectives discovered that Mr Pelicot had also taken photographs of Caroline lying motionless on a bed in her mother’s underwear.
Madame Peyronnet, 45, described her father as “one of the worst sexual predators of the last 20 years”.
Pelicot faces up to 20 years in prison. The other men face shorter sentences if convicted.
The trial is scheduled to last until December.