- Madame Pelicot makes emotional statement after ex-husband was jailed alongside fellow rapists
Finally, France’s most horrific sexual abuse case has concluded after a months-long trial with 51 men brought to justice for their heinous crimes.
Dominique Pelicot, 72, now known as the Monster of Avignon, drugged, raped and organised the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his now-ex-wife Gisele Pelicot by dozens of other men.
Firefighters, soldiers, lorry drivers, a DJ and a journalist are among those found guilty of raping 71-year-old Gisele at the behest of her husband Dominique over the course of a decade – all without her knowledge.
On Thursday, Today, the Monster of Avignon was slapped with a 20-year prison term by Judge Roger Arata after he pleaded guilty to drugging her repeatedly for almost a decade to rape her and to offer up her unconscious body for sex to dozens of strangers.
Several abusers have escaped justice, with police unable to identify more than 20 men involved in Gisele’s abuse.
But Arata handed down guilty sentences to another 50 men besides Pelicot, many of whom contacted Gisele’s husband online and were invited to his home in the sleepy Provence village of Mazan to assault his unconscious wife on camera.
In all, the court found 47 of the defendants guilty of rape, two guilty of attempted rape and two guilty of sexual assault.
Chaos erupted outside the courtroom with a large group of baying protesters gathered outside shouting ‘shame on you’ as the defendants emerged, hiding their faces behind masks and under hoods.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for one defendant who was found guilty of sexual assault but walks free having already spent the length of his sentence behind bars was filmed laughing at the protesters, labelling them ‘a bunch of hysterical knitters’ and taunting them by saying ‘my client has a message for you – the message is s***’.
He went on to say: ‘Your request for 20-year prison sentences for all the defendants has been refused… My client walks free, he says ‘Up yours!’
Now, as the trial comes to a close, these are the disturbing testimonies and astonishing excuses given by the men accompanying Pelicot in court, along with their verdicts and sentences in full.
Dominique Pelicot, 72
Pelicot, who had been with Gisele for 50 years and shares three children with her, has admitted to serially raping and allowing others to abuse his wife.
‘I am a rapist just like all the others in this room,’ he said, adding: ‘I ask my wife, my children, my grandchildren to accept my apologies. I regret what I did. I ask for your forgiveness, even if it is not forgivable.’
Pelicot told the courtroom he had a difficult upbringing and had himself been a victim of rape, crying at times as he gave his testimony.
He said he had wanted his wife to participate in partner swaps and her refusal, together with trauma from his youth, had helped to trigger his abusive behaviour.
‘It became a perversion, an addiction,’ he told the courtroom.
Pelicot said he had filmed the acts of abuse as an insurance policy in case one of the men involved reacted poorly. He was on Thursday found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
The Monster of Avignon’s lawyer Beatrice Zavarro said no decision has yet been made on whether he will appeal his sentence.
She says she will not criticise any decision made by the courts, adding they now had 10 days to discuss whether to bring forward a challenge to the ruling.
Thierry Postat, 61, refrigeration specialist
The father-of-three denied raping Gisele on August 21, 2020, saying he did not see anything out of the ordinary about the night in question and had previously had encounters with couples where the man had given consent for the woman.
‘I always thought Mrs Pelicot would wake up,’ he told the court. ‘She wasn’t cold, she wasn’t dead, her skin was soft.’
The 61-year-old is also charged with possession of hundreds of child abuse images which were found after his arrest in the Pelicot case, charges he admits to.
Found guilty of aggravated rape and possessing child pornography, sentenced to 12 years in prison and banned from working with children for life.
Lionel Rodriguez, 44, supermarket worker
The father-of-three admitted that he was guilty of raping Gisele on December 2, 2018 – though he said he had not intended to.
‘Since I never obtained Gisele’s consent, I have no choice but to accept the facts,’ he told the court, before apologising to his victim for the ‘nightmare’ she had endured.
He added: ‘I never told myself: ”I will rape that woman”,’ but admitted that he should have left when he saw Gisele was unconscious, and that it was cowardly of him not to have said anything.
He put some of the blame on Pelicot, saying he had done what the husband had told him to do.
Found guilty of aggravated rape, sentenced to eight years in prison.
Click here to read about the other men.
Gisele Pelicot speaks after the judgment
Gisele Pelicot gave a powerful statement after the jailing of her depraved husband and his rapist accomplices, saying she has ‘never regretted’ her decision to waive her anonymity and that she did so to reveal to the world what they had done.
Dominique Pelicot cried as he was sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison for raping and organising the mass rape of his wife – with all of his 50 co-defendants also receiving guilty verdicts for their part in France’s most notorious sex crimes trial.
Madame Pelicot later emerged from the courtroom to the waiting cameras of the world’s media, saying she was ’emotional’ as she issued a statement after what she said had been ‘a very difficult test for me.’
‘I am thinking first and foremost about my children, David, Caroline and Florian. I am thinking also about my grandchildren. For them I really wanted to take this struggle forward.
‘I’m thinking about all the other families affected by the case and the not recognised victims in the shadows… I share their struggle.’
She went on to share her ‘deepest gratitude’ to all those who supported her throughout the trial, describing how ‘witness statements and testimonials really gave me strength to keep coming back’ throughout the three-month ordeal.
Referring to why she waived her anonymity, she said: ‘I wanted when I started with this case on September 2 to ensure that society could see what was happening and I have never regretted this decision.
‘I want to take hold of a future in which everybody, women and men, can live together in harmony, respect and mutual understanding.’
