The ‘Monster of Avignon’ shocked the courtroom at his much-watched trial today when he admitted drugging his wife and allowing several strangers to rape her.
Dominique Pélicot, 71, spoke for the first time about his crimes on Tuesday morning after a period of absence from his trial due to illness.
“I am a rapist, just like everyone else in this room,” he admitted today in an explosive case that has captured global attention for its scale and horror. “I acknowledge the facts in their entirety.”
Mr Pélicot is in the dock at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon as he faces trial alongside 50 other men, all accused of “aggravated rape” of his wife Gisèle Pélicot, also 71, over a period of ten years.
Dressed in a thick grey shirt, Pélicot confessed to crimes that led his own daughter to describe him as “one of the biggest sexual predators” of recent years.
Dominique Pélicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over a 10-year period
Gisèle Pélicot arrives at the court in Avignon, France, on the eighth day of her trial
In a new sketch by the artist, Mr. Pélicot appears in court in Avignon on September 11.
Madame Pélicot today watched impassively as her ex-husband shuffled into the courtroom, leaning on a cane.
“Today I maintain that, given the obligations we all have, I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom. They cannot say otherwise,” he told the court.
Pélicot also focused on alleged crimes he allegedly suffered as a child, saying he was raped when he was nine and then forced to witness another sexual attack when he was 14.
“I don’t remember anything from my youth except shocks and traumas,” says Pélicot.
But all this changed, Pélicot said, when he met his wife as a teenager.
“I was very happy with her,” Pélicot said in his shocking confession. “She was the complete opposite of my mother, who was completely rebellious.
“We had three children and grandchildren whom I never touched.”
He said that Gisèle Pélicot, from whom he is now divorced, “did not deserve this”.
At the end of her brief statement, Ms. Pélicot lowered her head and put on her sunglasses.
Pélicot has been in pre-trial detention since 2020, when he was first arrested on suspicion of gassing and then raping Ms. Pélicot, while inviting men she contacted online to do the same.
Pélicot faces up to 20 years in prison, along with all the other defendants.
Last week, psychologists described Pélicot as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character who appeared to be a normal husband during the day and then drugged his wife so that strangers could rape her at night.
Pélicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, 46, told the court last week that he was “one of the biggest sexual predators” of recent years.
She said he secretly photographed her naked, along with her two sisters-in-law.
This happened in the same family home in Mazan, about 30 kilometres from Avignon, where Pélicot had invited the alleged rapists.
Pélicot was first arrested in September 2020 for secretly filming under women’s skirts in a supermarket in Carpentras.
They searched his devices and found hundreds of pornographic videos and photographs of women.
It was during his arrest that Mr. Pélicot reported a hard drive, hidden under a printer, containing a file called “Abuses”.
She classified the nicknames and phone numbers of the attackers, as well as some 3,800 photographs and videos of Gisèle Pélicot being raped, between 2011 and 2020.
Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.
The Pélicot sex network consisted of advertising on a site for ‘couples’ an online forum called ‘Without her knowing’ on the site coco.fr.
Of the 83 men involved, 51 between the ages of 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by the police.
It is said that Pélicot sedated his wife by giving her Temesta, a powerful anxiolytic, at her evening meal.
Dominique Pelicot can be seen in this court sketch on the right.
The assault took place in the southern French town of Mazan and was only discovered after the man was caught pulling down women’s skirts in a local supermarket, prompting officers to search his home.
The alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a journalist, a municipal councillor and truck drivers.
In a separate case, Pélicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old real estate agent in Paris in 1991.
He admitted to attempted rape in 1999 after DNA evidence showed there were charges against him.
The Avignon aggravated rape case will be continued until December 21.
Fourteen of the other defendants also admitted rape, while the rest deny any wrongdoing.
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