A woman who prosecutors say was drugged by her ex-husband so other men could sexually assault him while she was unconscious testified Thursday that when police showed her evidence of years of abuse, her world fell apart.
In a calm, clear voice, Gisele Pélicote detailed the horror of discovering that her ex-husband had systematically filmed dozens of rapes and the thousands of images later found by police investigators.
“It’s unbearable,” she said during an hour of testimony in a courtroom in the southern French city of Avignon. “I have so much to say that I always don’t know where to start.”
Dominique Pelicot, now 71, and 50 other men are on trial for rape and face up to 20 years in prison. The trial began on Monday and is expected to last until December. Thursday marks the first time Gisele Pelicot, 70, has testified.
The Associated Press does not generally identify victims of sexual crimes. But Stéphane Babonneau, Gisele Pélicot’s lawyer, said he agreed to have her name published because she insisted the trial be held in public.
She told the court she hoped her testimony could save other women from similar experiences. She said she pushed for the trial in open court in solidarity with other women who are not recognised as victims of sexual crimes.
She and her husband, 50, have three children. When they retired, the couple moved into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.
“I thought we were a very close couple,” she told the court.
But in late 2020, a security officer caught her husband taking photos of women’s bras in a supermarket, prompting investigators to search Dominique Pelicot’s phone and computer. They found thousands of photos and videos of men abusing Gisele in her home while she was unconscious.
When police officers called her in for questioning, she initially told them that her husband was a “great guy.” But after encountering the unexplainable (the police showed her some of the images), she left her husband.
“Everything is falling apart for me,” he said. “These are scenes of brutality and violence.”
She left with two suitcases, “the only thing I had left after 50 years of living together.” Since then, she said: “I no longer have an identity… I don’t know if I will ever recover.”
Police detectives found communications from Dominique Pelicot allegedly sent to a messaging website commonly used by criminals, in which he solicited men for sexual assault. French authorities blocked the website earlier this year.
The trial revealed raw details of the alleged abuse, which investigators say began in 2011, and the elaborate system Pelicot implemented over a 10-year period.
Dominique Pellicote told investigators that men invited to the couple’s home had to follow certain rules: they could not speak loudly, they had to take off their clothes in the kitchen, they could not wear perfume or smell of tobacco.
They would have to wait up to an hour and a half in a nearby parking lot for the drug to take full effect and render Gisele Pelicot unconscious.
A toxicologist spoke on Thursday of a “cocktail” of drugs, a combination of Temesta and Zolpidem, hypnotics and anxiolytics. The medical examiner said the men were not forced to use condoms and that Gisele Pelicote had four sexually transmitted infections.
“I sacrificed myself on the altar of vice,” testified Gisele Pellicote. “They treated me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.”
Thanks to Dominique Pellicote’s filming of the alleged abuse, police were able to track down most of the 72 suspects they had been looking for for two years.
In addition to Pelikot, 50 other men aged between 22 and 70 are on trial. Several defendants deny some of the accusations against them, saying they were manipulated by Pelicot.
When questioned in court, Gisele Pélicote denied that any of the men had been manipulated or trapped.
“These people came into my house, they respected the protocol imposed. They did not attack me with a weapon. They raped me in all honesty,” she said. “Why didn’t they go to the police station? Even an anonymous phone call could have saved my life.”
Over the next few months, the defendants will appear in small groups before the five-judge panel, with Pelicot due to speak next week. Psychologists, psychologists and computer scientists are also testifying.
Outside the courtroom, Gisele Pélicote told reporters that she tried to answer the lawyers’ questions as best she could, despite the pressure of having all these “people” behind her.
“We must fight to the end.”
Associated Press writer Joly reported from Avignon, Vaux-Montagne from Lyon, France. AP reporters John Lester and Diane Jeantet contributed to this report from Paris.
