A French husband accused of drugging his wife and persuading dozens of strangers to rape her over a decade told the court: “I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom.”
Dominique Pelicot, 71, spoke for the first time during his trial, saying, “I accept the facts in full.” He faces charges including rape and gang rape of his now ex-wife Gisele Pellicot, as well as several counts of invasion of privacy by recording and distributing sexually explicit images.
He is on trial with 50 other men. Fourteen of the other defendants have admitted to rape, while the rest deny any wrongdoing.
“They all knew, they can’t say otherwise,” he said of the defendants in the case.
The grandfather appeared in the dock at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon after a week of health problems that delayed his testimony. He arrived with a cane.
Pelicot is insisting on a public trial to expose him and the other men accused of raping him and to shed light on sexual violence, his lawyers said.
For many, she has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France. On Saturday, hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered in cities across the country to show their support for her.
In a dramatic scene in court on Tuesday, Mrs Pelicot was allowed to react immediately to her husband’s admission, saying: “This is hard for me to hear.
“I lived with a man for 50 years who I never imagined for a second could do these things. I trusted this man completely.”
Wearing a thick gray shirt, Pélicot confessed to his crimes, prompting his daughter to describe him on the stand as “one of the biggest sexual predators in recent years.”
“Today, with the obligations that we all have, I, like everyone else in this room, maintain that I am a rapist. They cannot say otherwise,” he said.
Offering further mitigation, he said: “I am accused of many things. We are not born perverts, we become perverts. Paradoxically, I have never seen my wife as an object.”
He then asked for sympathy by saying, “I am guilty of what I did. I subjected my wife, my children, my grandchildren to this. I regret what I did. Even though it is unforgivable, I ask for forgiveness.”
Pélicot also focused on the crimes she allegedly suffered as a child, saying she was raped when she was nine and then forced to witness another sexual assault when she was 14. “I don’t remember anything from my youth except shocks and traumas,” she said.
But Pelicot said all that changed when he met his wife in his youth. “I was very happy with her,” he said. “She was the complete opposite of my mother, who was completely rebellious. We had three children and grandchildren who I never touched.”
He said that his ex-wife Gisèle Pélicot “didn’t deserve this”.
After his brief statement, Pelicot bowed his head and put on his sunglasses.
Pelicot has been in custody since he was first arrested in 2020 on suspicion of gassing and raping Ms Pélicot, by inviting men he contacted online to do the same.
He, along with the other defendants, faces up to 20 years in prison.
Last week psychologists described him as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character who appeared to be a normal husband during the day, then drugged his wife and had strangers rape her at night.
Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, 46, told the court last week that Pelicot was “one of the biggest sexual predators in recent years.”
She said he secretly photographed her and her two sisters-in-law naked at the same family home in Mazan, about 20 miles from Avignon, where Pelicot invited the alleged rapists.
Pelicot was first arrested for secretly filming women up their skirts at a supermarket in Carpentras in September 2020. His devices were searched and hundreds of pornographic videos and images of women were found.
Authorities said a hard drive hidden under a printer contained a file called “Exploits”. It classified the aliases and phone numbers of the attackers, along with nearly 3,800 photos and videos of Gisèle Pélicot being raped between 2011 and 2020. Detectives listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified.
Pelicot’s alleged sex ring involved advertising on an online forum for “partners”. Of the 83 men involved, 51, aged between 26 and 73, were identified by police and arrested.
In a separate case, Pelicot was accused of raping and killing a 23-year-old real estate agent in Paris in 1991. He also admitted to an attempted rape in 1999 after DNA testing proved there was a case against him.
The aggravated rape trial in Avignon is expected to last until December 21.