Dominique Pelicot, who raped his wife for years both alone and in the company of other men he invited while she was under the influence of drugs, spoke on Tuesday about his compulsive raping practices, including on one occasion when his grandchildren were at home.
In his first statement before the Vaucluse Criminal Court (south-east of France), which has been trying him since 2 September, he explained why his grandchildren had remembered the day when their grandmother, Gisèle Pelicot, did not appear because she slept until 6 pm.
The main defendant has admitted that that day he had once again given his wife tranquilizers and sexually abused her despite the fact that his grandchildren were at home. He added that he did not do it again in similar circumstances because of the practical inconveniences it entailed. He has indicated that since he began drugging her in 2011 he raped her two or three times a week, first only by himself and from 2013 with other men whom he invited to his house so that they could do it too.
He denies having manipulated the other rapists
In fact, 50 other men are in the dock with him, 49 for having sexually abused Gisèle Pelicot, and one for having copied Dominique’s methods to drug his own wife and rape her in his company. The records of Dominique Pelicot that the police found at his home when everything was discovered in the autumn of 2020 show that as the years went by, there were more and more rapes recorded.
The main defendant denied having manipulated the other men who came to his house, who had “perfect knowledge” of his behavior and could not ignore that sexual relations with his wife were taking place without her consent. “I did not put a gun to their heads to get them to come,” he stressed. “They accepted it from the beginning. The only question they asked was, “How much do I have to put in?”
But on the latter issue, Dominique Pelicot has insisted that there was never any money involved and that he did not receive anything and did not force anyone. He also stressed that “in no case” was Gisèle Pelicot complicit: “It was always done without her consent.” This is an important aspect because some of those in the dock have not acknowledged the rapes and claim that they believed they were participating in a sexual game in which both Pelicot spouses agreed.
How did Gisèle not notice?
Given the massive and repetitive nature of the rapes of Gisèle Pelicot over almost ten years, one of the aspects that has remained most misunderstood is how she did not notice. One of the answers lies in the precautions taken by her husband, who asked the other men not to make noise, to undress in another room before entering the bedroom.
Furthermore, once the abuse was over, Dominique Pelicot would clean Gisèle’s private parts and put the same clothes on her so that she wouldn’t realise that she had been unconscious under the effects of tranquillisers. She had realised that something was wrong with her, but thought she was suffering from an early form of Alzheimer’s.
She also had gynecological problems: heavy, regular bleeding from the vagina and repeated inflammation of the cervix.
