This article contains distressing details.
A man accused of drugging his then-wife, raping her and inviting dozens of men to do the same, has admitted to all charges as he gave evidence at his trial in France.
Dominique Pélicot testified in court on Tuesday in Avignon, southern France, in a case that has shocked the country.
The 71-year-old pleaded with his former wife, and their three children, for forgiveness.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Pélicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
While he previously confessed to investigators, the court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial alongside him. Many deny having raped Gisèle Pélicot, saying they were manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
Gisèle Pélicot, who has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case and let the trial be public, is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband’s testimony.
Pélicot’s much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.
Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pélicot told judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in hospital when he was nine years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.
Pélicot also spoke of the trauma endured when his parents took a young girl in the family, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate behavior toward her.
“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”
Some of Pelicot’s co-accused leave the Avignon court house.
At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me.”
“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.
Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pélicot said she did not deserve what he did.
“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.
At that moment, Gisèle Pélicot, standing across the room, facing him across a group of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sunglasses back on.
Later, Dominique Pélicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”
Pelicot was caught by a security guard in 2020 taking videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents.
Police searched Pélicot’s house and electronic devices, and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisèle Pélicot while she appears to lie unconscious on their bed. The offences are understood to have taken place over almost a decade.
With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.
She and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.
When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy,” according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left her husband and they are now divorced.
Besides Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial. Many deny having raped Pélicot, saying they were manipulated by her ex-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
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