Gisèle Pelicot, who survived almost a decade of rape by dozens of men after she was drugged by her ex-husband, has told a French court that she never gave consent for anyone to abuse her while she was in a comatose state and that no victim should ever feel shame.
Addressing the appeal trial on Wednesday of an unemployed builder who has contested his conviction for raping her, she said: “For me, the harm has been done – I will need to rebuild from these ruins and I think I’m on the right road – but what I want to say to others is that I never regretted my decisions, from filing a legal complaint until today. I want to say to victims to never be ashamed of what was imposed on them, because they’re never responsible.”
Pelicot, 72, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in last year’s rape and sexual assault trial of 51 men. Her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was found guilty of crushing sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious in their bedroom in the Provence village of Mazan between 2011 and 2020.
The 50 other men on trial alongside him were also found guilty. One of them, Husamettin Dogan, 44, a married father who was sentenced to nine years in prison, has appealed against his conviction for rape. He is being retried at the court of appeal in the southern French city of Nîmes.
The court on Wednesday was shown video evidence of what police investigators said was Dogan raping Pelicot several times when she was unconscious in her bedroom. The head judge said Pelicot had been at risk of suffocating. Dogan was shown smiling in the videos.
Despite Pelicot snoring loudly and appearing in a comatose state, Dogan said the videos showed “sex scenes” and denied it was rape. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He told the court: “I never raped.”
Pelicot said of the video evidence: “This is not a sex scene, it is rape. And without a condom.” She said having to watch this video evidence during the investigation meant “these scenes are imprinted into my memory for ever, and I’m trying to rebuild myself”.
She said she had never met Dogan, and never given consent.
She said: “I’m trying to understand how this individual has never accepted that he raped Madame Pelicot. I would have thought that in one year, he would have reflected on it and not been in denial.”
Pelicot said that, while she was unable to make herself watch the 13 pieces of video evidence, Dogan had watched intently. She said: “I saw him enjoy [watching the videos]. He didn’t lower his eyes for one moment.”
Turning to him, she said: “You haven’t understood. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It’s a crime to rape an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you consent? Never.”
The court had heard that Dogan had told police investigators in one of his interviews that Pelicot had looked “dead” when he arrived in her bedroom. Pelicot said to him: “You say you left quickly. Well, I would have left quickly before raping. I’m ashamed for you because I put myself in the place of the victim.”
Dogan had told the court that he felt he himself was a victim because Dominique Pelicot had “manipulated” him. Gisèle Pelicot said: “You say you’re a victim. The only victim in his room is me … I’m ashamed for you.”
Testifying to the trial earlier this week, Dominique Pelicot told the court he would seek men on a chatroom called “without her knowledge” and tell them by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”
On Wednesday, Pelicot told the court she had had no idea that for almost a decade her husband was drugging her and inviting strangers to rape her. She said she had been drugged into a “state of general anaesthetia”. For years she suffered constant memory lapses that she feared were the start of Alzheimers. She consulted neurologists but her husband always went to the appointments with her. No doctors thought of investigating whether she was being drugged.
Pelicot said she now lived with the lifelong consequences of four sexually transmitted diseases from the years of rape, which require constant treatment and monitoring. She told the court that recently doctors found “an anomaly”, conducted a biopsy and she was waiting for results to find out if she needed surgery.
Pelicot told the court: “When these individuals came into my room, they saw this woman who was inert. They said they thought I was pretending, but at what point did they ask me if I was OK with it or not? At no point did they ask my consent. Never did I give my consent. They are totally responsible for their acts.”
When Dogan’s defence lawyer, Jean-Marc Darrigade, told Pelicot she was an icon, she said: “Stop saying I’m an icon. I’m an ordinary woman who lifted her anonymity in a trial. I’m not an icon.” She said the defence’s line of questioning about whether she had consented to naked photos or films in her married life was “absurd”. She said “It’s always for the victims to justify themselves.”
Pelicot said the revelation of the crimes, after police searched Dominique Pelicot’s phones when he was caught filming up women’s skirt in a supermarket in 2020, had been “a tsunami, an explosion” for the whole family.
She praised and thanked her daughter, Caroline Darian, for creating an organisation that now raises awareness on drug-assisted rape and gives victims support. Darian believes she was sedated and sexually assaulted or raped by her father over a period of potentially 10 years between 2010 and 2020, when she was in her 30s.
Pelicot said: “It’s much harder for my daughter and I hear that and understand it. She’s in doubt and has never had answers … I know she has filed a legal complaint. I hope she’ll have the answers I couldn’t give her.”
Pelicot said she hoped the family, which she said had always been very close, could overcome the ordeal.
The verdict is expected on Thursday.
