A man has wept in court as his wife, who he allegedly drugged so 50 men could rape her, described undergoing an HIV test and being diagnosed with four STDs after a decade of abuse.
Dominique Pelicot, 71, broke down in tears in the dock as he listened to his wife Gisele Pelicot, 71, detail how they fell in love and started their married life together before her world ‘collapsed’ when her husband’s depraved crimes were discovered.
Madame Pelicot, who has three children and seven grandchildren, bravely waived her right to anonymity to make public details of the horrific betrayal her partner of 50 years had forced her to endure over ten years.
Judge Roger Arata asked her if she suffered any problems after being abused for ten years, to which she replied that she was tested for HIV, adding: ‘I was diagnosed with four sexually transmitted diseases at the Versailles medical forensic unit.’
The judge also asked Madame Pelicot whether her husband had any ‘sexual desires’ that she didn’t want to participate in.
‘Once we went to a nightclub with another couple where there was a “swingers’ room”. But I didn’t want to get involved in that so we did not go into that room and we just stayed in the main nightclub,’ the mother-of-three replied.
Another judge asked Madame Pelicot whether she and her husband ever discussed filming their sexual intercourse.
She said: ‘I never agreed to Monsieur Pelicot filming us having sex. No the only time we talked about something like this was at the swingers’ room at the nightclub. I understood that he would have wanted to do it. But for me it was impossible.’
Today, Madame Pelicot had to relive the trauma that she experienced when a police investigator showed her graphic films of her being raped repeatedly by her husband Dominique and more than 80 strangers – not all of whom have been identified – while she was unconscious.
Mr Pelicot and 50 others are accused of raping her and while Mr Pelicot and 14 of his co-accused have admitted their part in France’s worst rape case, 35 men – from all walks of life – deny that they forced themselves on Madame Pelicot while she was unconscious, claiming that she in some way consented.
Madame Pelicot’s lawyer asked her in court today: ‘Some of the defendants admit the facts, others contest all the facts, and others confirm they were present but deny it was rape.
‘You caught four sexually transmitted diseases and were exposed to HIV six times. What have you got to say to people who claim you consented to all this?’
The brave mother-of-three replied: ‘All I have to say is, it’s an insult to my intelligence. These individuals were totally aware of what state I was in. I never knowingly took part in any of these things.
‘How can you even try and make people think that a woman would knowingly take part in all this?’
The judge told Madame Pelicot that Mr Pelicot has acknowledged his crimes, and asked her; ‘What do you feel about this?’
She replied: ‘Feelings of disgust. We had everything, we had a great life. I don’t understand how this could have happened.’
Madame Pelicot is determined that the public knows that she played no part in her husband’s warped sexual fantasies that he played out at their picturesque chalet home in the Provence village of Mazan.
Wearing a long, orange dress, a white blouse and a gold necklace, she sat with her head held high in the same courtroom as those accused her raping her this morning.
Accompanied by her three grown-up children, the 71-year-old with a smart auburn bob appeared defiant in the face of her abusers.
She stared up at the ceiling of the Avignon court room and gave a heavy sigh as Judge Arata opened the fourth day of the trial that has shocked France.
Across the room Dominique Pelicot, her grey-haired husband of 50 years – who claims to have adored his wife – looked at her without expression.
Madame Pelicot had no idea that she was being subjected to this terrible betrayal until her husband was arrested for ‘upskirting’ at his local supermarket and police discovered a library of ‘sex-movies’ at their home.
Madame Pelicot said in court, as reported by Le Parisien: ‘I am inert, in my bed, and I am being raped. These are scenes of barbarity. Don’t talk to me about sex scenes, these are rape scenes. I have never practised threesomes or swinging, I want to say that.’
At 9.20am, Madame Pelicot took the witness stand to give evidence. She gave her name, maiden name and age into the microphone.
Judge Arata tried to reassure her that she should take her time to make her testimony. And he warned her she would face cross examination.
Undeterred, Madame Pelicot started her testimony by thanking police for discovering her husband’s depraved crimes: ‘I would not be before you if it were not for the work of the police of Carpentras [the town where the supermarket where her husband was arrested in 2020].
‘On that day in September I had been away with my daughter. I returned home to Mazan and I sat in the kitchen.
‘Monsieur Pelicot told me; “I have done something silly. I took some photographs in the supermarket”.
‘He was crying. I told him that I would support him because we have had a lifetime together.
‘After 50 years of marriage I said I would forgive him. But if there was a second time I would leave him.
‘In October I went to Paris to look after two of my grandchildren.
‘I received a phone call from the police who told me they wanted to talk to me. I made an appointment in November at the police headquarters in Carpentras.’
She continued: ‘We were later summoned to the police. I knew he had taken photos of these women and thought we were going as a formality.’
Madame Pelicot told the court that she would remember walking up the steps to the police station ‘for the rest of my life’.
At the station, where she was wearing a mask as it was during the Covid pandemic, a police officer told her: ‘I’m going to tell you something you won’t like.’
Madame Pelicot said that day, ‘my world [collapsed], for me everything [collapsed], everything I have built in 50 years,’ as reported by Le Parisien.
She said: ‘For 50 years I always supported my husband, health, financial and couple problems. It was based on trust.’
‘I’m a woman who only one man can touch, Mr Pelicot, no other can put a hand on me,’ she added, as reported by the Telegraph.
Madame Pelicot said when she left the police station, she returned home alone while her husband remained in custody: ‘The trauma was enormous. The shock. I returned home to my little dog. I could not stay alone. I had to go to see some friends.
‘I told my son that his father was in custody, that he had been charged. On the 3rd of November I went to the police station at Carpentras.
‘The police showed me the videos. My world collapsed. When I told my daughter she screamed. I left my house with two suitcases and my dog. That was all I had after 50 years of marriage. Everything was based on trust in 50 years.
‘My daughter had a nervous breakdown and required medical help.’
‘When I told my sons about this, I don’t think they really understood, they were withdrawn and didn’t react much. I think they were in a state of shock. They said don’t say such silly things,’ she said, as reported by the Telegraph.
‘[That] evening, the children rang all the time saying don’t disappear, they were worried I might die.’
Madame Pelicot continued: ‘You can’t imagine yourself in a situation like that. In that moment I wanted to disappear.
‘I had to tell my children that their father was in custody. I called my son-in-law and told my daughter and told them: “He raped me”. Then I heard my daughter screaming a deep cry that I cannot get out of my head.
‘People in the street – at the bakery at the supermarket, asked me if I was ok. I had to leave the area. I could not stay in that house. I had lost everything, my husband, my life.
‘I didn’t know who I was or where I was going. I had lost my identity. My son moved me out of that house.’
Referring to the sex tapes her husband had made of strangers abusing her she said: ‘This was not sex it was rape. I have never practiced open sex, I was never swinger.
‘I was never a victim, until now. I had to get help, counselling.’
Madame Pelicot said she believed the first instance of being drugged was in 2011 when she woke up in the afternoon with no memory.
She said: ‘One day in 2011, I woke up at 6pm in the evening. That was not right. I never sleep until 6pm in the evening. I knew this was not normal but I could understand why.
‘I had no memory of the day. I asked Monsieur Pelicot what had happened.’
The couple moved to the village in Provence two years later in 2013. She said: ‘In March 2013 we left Paris for Mazan and this “absence” started again.
‘I have an excellent memory. I joked to my husband, “you’re not drugging me are you?” He broke down in tears and said; “you actually think I could do that?”
‘I went to see a neurologist. I was convinced I had Alzheimer’s. He said don’t worry. I had scans but the absences continued. I don’t remember any of the sex scenes.
‘My son told my husband that I was not well. He said “don’t worry”.’
Madame Pelicot added: ‘I was sacrificed by my husband for these obscenities – a woman drugged and abused. It was like I was dead. I was treated like a piece of meat.
‘This is why I am speaking out, – for all the other women who are abused. It was humiliating what I have gone through.
‘It started when I learned from the investigating magistrate that Mr Pelicot had filmed up women’s skirts with a hidden camera in a pen.
‘I learned that in 2010 he had done something similar. If I had known back then I would have perhaps I would have been more vigilant. I could have won back ten years of my life.’
Madame Pelicot said: ‘These videos are all more horrible than the others. It’s barbaric, I don’t know how my body is strong enough to stand before you today.’
The mother-of-three recalled how her own mother died when she was just nine years old and that she left school aged only 13 to find work.
She said: ‘At 13 I was knocking on factory doors asking for work. When I was two years old I knew that my mother had an incurable disease. But I never saw my grandmother cry. We don’t show tears in my family.’
She recalled: ‘Then I met Mr Pelicot. He had a tyrannical family. He had to give all of his wages to his parents. I married very young. I was 20 years old.
‘We needed permission from our parents. My dad was not in favour of the wedding but he accepted it. We had no money but we were very much in love. I have never been with another man. We were not rich but we were happy.
‘Monsieur Pelicot is an electrician. He retrained as an estate agent. He had kidney stones and almost died. And then the real estate crisis. No money was coming in but I still supported him. I knew he was courageous. He has always worked hard.’
Meanwhile, Monsieur Pelicot broke down in tears in the dock. Wiping his eyes, the grey-haired multiple rapists appeared to be unable to listen to his estranged wife’s memory of their once happy life.
She added: ‘[After Mr Pelicot’s arrest], I learned that he had been raped aged nine. He wasn’t supported by his parents. We could have dealt with it together.
‘I’m being treated by a psychiatrist now. Rape scenes are torture scenes. Why does anyone deserve to go though that?’
After giving her testimony, Judge Arata began to question Madame Pelicot.
The judge told her that Mr Pelicot has acknowledged his crimes, and asked her; ‘What do you feel about this?’
Madame Pelicot replied: ‘Feelings of disgust. We had everything, we had a great life. I don’t understand how this could have happened.’
When asked if she had any abuse after suffering the abuse, Madame Pelicot said: ‘I have gynaecological problems. I was diagnosed with four sexually transmitted diseases at the Versailles medical forensic unit.’
She added: ‘I was tested for HIV as one man who came [to rape me] six times was seropositive. My life was in danger but not one second did anyone stop. Luckily I didn’t catch it. But not once did Mr Pelicot say to himself, “I’ve gone too far”.’
‘He showed no pity, no pity at all,’ the 71-year-old said, as reported by the Telegraph.
The judge ended his interrogation with what he described as a ‘very difficult question’.
He asked: ‘Madame Pelicot, are you in any way complicit in Monsieur Pelicot’s activities?’
She replied calmly: ‘Absolutely not. I never pretended to be asleep or anything like that.’
Madame Pelicot told the court that she was now divorced from the husband of 50 years. She added that she had kept her married name in support of her children.
The grandmother told the court: ‘I wanted to be called Gisele Pelicot for the duration of this trial out of solidarity with my children who are called Pelicot.’
In her testimony, Madame Pelicot told how her husband would take pictures of her when she was leaving the bathroom.
She said: ‘I told my husband to stop taking pictures of me’. He replied: ‘You should be pleased that after 50 years your husband still wants to take photos of you.’
She told the court: ‘It was flattering perhaps but it annoyed me and I told him to stop.’
She added :’I never took place in this sexual activity. How could any wife agree to do any of this. It is totally unacceptable.’
Earlier Madame Pelicot admitted that she once had an affair.
She explained how she was friends with her lover and that he visited her ‘periodically’ over a two-year period, to which her husband ‘reacted very badly’.
Madame Pelicot explained: ‘He could see there was a problem as I found it hard to love two people at once. As I said, our couple was based on trust so it was hard. But as I said he was the only man I had known.
‘I only ever had two men in my bed. It may sound ridiculous today.’
The shocking trial, which began on Monday, is set to end on December 20 with 50 people, including Mr Pelicot, facing aggravated rape charges.