It’s a case that gets more horrific by the day.
Since September, 71-year-old French man Dominique Pelicot has been on trial in Avignon, southern France, on charges of drugging and raping, and allowing dozens of strangers to rape, his wife of nearly 50 years, Gisèle Pelicot.
Gisèle, who has turned up to court every day greeted by an ever-growing number of supporters, has had to listen to 51 of her alleged abusers testify and deny the charges against them, while also being shown graphic and violent footage of what was done to her body while she was unconscious.
Now, Gisèle’s daughter has told the court that she, too, was abused by Dominique.
Between 2011 and 2020, Dominique had been allegedly drugging his wife and recruiting up to 72 men to come over and rape her unconscious body. In 2020, police found thousands of pieces of footage of the abuse on his phone.
In the early days of the trial, The New York Times revealed that Gisèle and Dominique’s daughter – who uses the pen name Caroline Daian – had discovered that her father had photographed her too. In 2022, she wrote a memoir (Et J’ai cesse de t’appeler Papa – And I stopped calling you dad) about her family’s horrific experience. Domonique is also accused of violating the privacy of his two daughters-in-law.
On Monday November 18, the couple’s children spoke of their horror and grief at what they and their mother have been through. Caroline insisted she had been “forgotten” in the allegations.
Dominique is accused of having photographed his daughter and his sons’ wives without their knowledge and of posting their naked pictures on social networks, along with pornographic photomontages, according to the ABC. He has admitted to raping his wife, but denies abusing his daughter.
“The only difference between [my mother] and me is the lack of evidence concerning me,” Caroline told the court. “For me, it’s an absolute tragedy … In your disgusting files, you don’t look at me like a father looks at his daughter,” she told Dominique. “But you will never have the courage to tell the truth.”
The couple’s son David, also took to the stand to share his heartwrenching experience, saying the whole family “has been totally destroyed”.
“You will be punished for the horrors and atrocities they committed against my mother,” he told his father, who he – and the rest of the family and their friends – had considered to be the perfect husband and dad.
“About what you did to my sister, who suffers every day and will suffer for the rest of her life, because I don’t think you’ll ever tell the truth,” he added, before alleging that his father had also abused a grandson. (Dominique denies this, too.)
marie claire has been closely following the case, and you can read what we know so far here. A verdict is expected to be passed down in December.
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