Hearing closed
The morning’s hearing at the criminal court in Avignon has now closed.
Gisèle Pelicot is expected to speak again at the later stages of the trial, which is due to run until 20 December.
A defence lawyer asks about Dominique Pelicot being stopped for filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020.
Gisèle Pelicot says that at the time, she thought it was the first time he had been stopped for this behaviour and felt then that she could forgive him if he apologised to the women he had targeted.
But during the police investigation, she says, she learned that he had been stopped previously for the same offence, ten years earlier in 2010, in a supermarket in the Paris area.
She says she was not informed of that in 2010 and that if she had been, she may have left him - instead of enduring a decade of rape between that point and 2020.
“I lost ten years of my life,” Gisèle Pelicot says. “If I had been alerted in 2010, I would have been a lot more vigilant about my mental lapses.”
A defence lawyer asks whether Gisèle Pelicot was aware of a memoir Dominique Pelicot had written in 2011.
She replies: “His daughter had asked him to write about his childhood; she knew he had had a difficult childhood. She said, ‘You should write a memoir.’”
Gisèle Pelicot says she had taken the manuscript on holiday to read. She discovered while reading it that Dominique Pelicot had been raped as a child, she says: “I was struck by that. I hadn’t understood before that he had been raped...”
Gisèle Pelicot is asked by a defence lawyer about her daughter, Caroline, telling investigators: “One night I saw my father take my mother by her neck, lift her off the ground and say he’d kill her.”
The lawyer asks if that related to the moment Dominique Pelicot found out that she had had an extra-marital relationship.
Gisèle Pelicot says it did, adding: “She was a little girl aged eight, she is not lying, but she saw a scene in the bathroom when her father came towards me. He shook me by the collar, that’s right.”
She says:
I lived with him for 50 years ... I wouldn’t have stayed 50 years if he had behaved like a violent brute. Like all couples, we had arguments. We got through lots of challenges, illness, work, money. He wasn’t a brute. He never hit me ... This case for me is total incomprehension. I would never have imagined a man could do this.
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Asked again about a possible inferiority complex felt by Dominique Pelicot, Gisèle Pelicot says:
When I met Dominique, despite losing my mother very young, I had always been surrounded by love, [from] my grandmother, my aunt. I had always been in that atmosphere. Dominique was the opposite, he had a tyrannical father, he gave all his salary to his parents. The difference was that - he had lots of anger, reproach ...
She says that when he met her he came into a family - her family - where there was a lot of love and gentleness. That was the difference between them, she sayds. She says her family had always supported him, and so had she: “I always tried to find a balance where things were good for us”.
She says she tried to compensate for the difficult childhood her former husband had endured. When she met Dominique Pelicot, she says, his mother would cry because she had no money because her tyrannical husband would not give her any.
Gisèle Pelicot says of Dominique Pelicot’s mother: “I saw how that woman, who I liked a lot, was not happy with her husband, who was tyrannical and authoritarian. We couldn’t talk about anything. At table, he had to be served like a prince.”
She questions testimony given by Dominique Pelicot’s brother, who told the court it had been a happy family.
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Gisèle Pelicot: "I keep going ... through determination to change society"
Asked how she kept going in the face of what she had heard in court, Gisèle Pelicot replies:
It’s true that I hear lots of women, and men, who say you’re very brave. I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society.
Asked by her lawyer whether she should ask herself if she was responsible for what happened, Gisèle Pelicot replies: “Of course today I feel responsible for nothing. Today, above all, I’m a victim.”
After hearing wives or girlfriends or friends in court saying the accused did not seem capable of rape, she says: “We have to progress on rape culture in society.” People should learn the definition of rape, she adds.
Asked about some of the accused men who said they had been gently caressing her during the alleged assaults, and that this therefore did not constitute rape, Gisèle Pelicot says the men were sullying “an unconscious woman”.
She says: “For me they are rapists, they remain rapists. Rape is rape.”
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Asked about her husband referring to her as “la bourgeoise” to some of the men he is alleged to have recruited to rape her, she says:
It’s interesting. I’ve always liked going out well-dressed, I’ve always been like that in my life, at work, even today. When I go to the market, I am always well-dressed. So if my way of dressing and way of being was bourgeoise ... I’ve always been interested in literature and music.
She says Dominique Pelicot did not like to go to the opera with her, it was perhaps because of that. “But I think culture is accessible to everyone today.”
The court president asks: “You are the daughter of an army officer, with a classic education?”
Gisèle Pelicot replies: “Yes, with values.”
The president asks if that had perhaps been a problem for Dominique Pelicot.
She replies: “I never felt an inferiority complex from him.”
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Asked by a judge about how Dominique Pelicot found out about her extra-marital relationship, she says had told him about it.
“I was in the bathroom,” Gisèle says. “He had doubts. He saw I wasn’t the same person. He said: ‘I need to know’, and I admitted it. For him, it was very hard. He couldn’t imagine for a moment I could do that.”
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Gisèle Pelicot is asked about a video with her husband, shown to the court, in which she is clearly heard to say “Stop, stop, it hurts” and to speak in a voice that is not “normal” - perhaps the early stages of sedation.
The court president asks: “Do you think it was consenting?” She replies: “It was a rape, of course it was a rape.”
The president describes how one of the accused men had said Dominique Pelicot had spoken of acting out of revenge against Gisèle Pelicot for her once having a relationship outside marriage.
He asks if she had felt there was a particular drive for humiliation by her husband. Gisèle Pelicot replies:
I have often thought that maybe he never recovered from the fact that I had met someone in my life. I often felt responsable. I thought: was it not maybe revenge, because he had so suffered from that affair? But it was years later, we had talked about that. He had affairs as well. The first man I knew was my husband, the second was my lover. We had talked about that as well.
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The court president asks Gisèle Pelicot about what she was wearing in Dominique Pelicot’s videos of her assaults.
The court heard last week how Dominique Pelicot would take off her pyjamas and dress her in other items, then re-dress her in pyjamas afterwards.
Gisèle Pelicot replies:
I had two drawers of my underwear, I knew my underwear well. I wore white or orange colours, I had stockings in white, I had black tights. The underwear in the videos is not my underwear. What I saw on the videos, it doesn’t belong to me, he must have kept it somewhere but I didn’t know.
Gièle Pelicot says that because of her concerns, “I consulted three gynaecologists. Several times I had woken up and felt like I had lost my waters - as happens when you give birth.”
She adds: “I know in the morning I take my breakfast in the kitchen, it’s basic, orange juice, toast, jam, honey. He could have put it in my orange juice or my coffee. But I didn’t feel that moment where I went under [as sedated].”
She says that she once went for a morning hairdressing appointment and her then husband insisted on driving her. She had what seemed like a black-out, she says, and didn’t remember the hair cutting or styling.
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The court president is asking questions about the preparation of the drugs used to sedate Gisèle Pelicot. He says that Dominique Pelicot stocked the drugs in the house to serve in meals or an ice-cream after dinner.
The court president asks: “Do you remember moments when Dominique Pelicot invited you to drink specific things or dishes?”
Giséle Pelicot replies:
He made a lot of meals. I saw that as him being attentive. I know that one night he came to collect me at Avignon station after 10 days with my grandchildren. He had already prepared the meal - mashed potato. Two plates were already in the oven. I put olive oil on my potatoes and he put butter, so it was easy to see which plate was his.
We would have a glass of white wine together. I never found anything strange about my potatoes. We finished eating. Often when it’s a football match on TV, I’d let him watch it alone. He brought my ice-cream to bed, where I was, my favourite flavour, raspberry. And I thought, ‘How lucky I am, he’s a love.’
I never felt my heart flutter, I didn’t feel anything, I must have gone under very quickly. I would wake up with my pyjamas on. The mornings I must have been more tired than usual, but I walk a lot and thought it was that.
Gisèle Pelicot tells rape victims: 'It’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them'
Of her trial, Pelicot said:
I wanted all woman victims of rape - not just when they have been drugged, rape exists at all levels – I want those woman to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too. When you’re raped there is shame, and it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them.
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Gisèle Pelicot says she is 'a woman who is totally destroyed'
Gisèle Pelicot adds:
The profile of a rapist is not someone met in a car-park late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends.
When I saw one of the accused on the stand last week who came into my bedroom and house without consentment.
This man, who came to rape an unconscious, 57-year-old woman – I am also a mother and grandmother ... I could have been his grandmother.
I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and don’t know how I can pick myself up from this.
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Gisèle Pelicot: 'How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?'
Gisèle Pelicot said she wanted to address her husband, calling him Dominique, but saying she did not want to look at him.
“So many times, I said to myself how lucky am I to have you at my side.” She said he had stood by when she thought she was ill with neurological problems (which were later found to be due to his drugging of her.)
“He took me to neurologist, to scanners when I was worried. He also went with me to the gynaecologist. For me, he was someone I trusted entirely.”
She said: “How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?”
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Gisèle Pelicot takes the stand
Gisèle Pelicot has taken the stand, with her former husband Dominique Pelicot watching from the dock. The president of the court told her she will have the opportunity to talk about evidence so far and on the issue of drugging.
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Marion Dubreuil, a court reporter for RMC radio, has been sketching some of the women – wives, girlfriends and mothers – of some of the accused men whose cases were being heard in court this morning.
Suspension de l’audience reprise à 11h30 pour l’audition de Gisèle Pelicot @RMCInfo pic.twitter.com/xfWm8Qnrko
— Marion Dubreuil (@MarionDub) October 23, 2024
Updated
Among those who testified in court this morning was the mother of Florian R, a 32-year-old delivery driver and father of three who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot in December 2019.
The woman in her fifties told the court that she worked as a cleaner. She had Florian R before she was 20-years-old, then separated from his father three months later.
She said she was cross with her son when she found out the charges. “I wondered did I get something wrong in the way he was raised? I know what he did is very serious. I don’t hide that.”
Earlier this month the Guardian’s associate editor, Europe, Katherine Butler, spoke to Angelique Chrisafis about why this trial is so unusual and whether it might change French attitides to sexual violence.
Trials like this are normally held behind closed doors, away from the media, but this case is being heard in public because Gisèle Pelicot “wanted to draw attention to the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse,” Angelique said.
“That’s why she called for the lifting of restrictions on the screening of video evidence in the trial. Her lawyer said the ‘shock wave’ of this public trial and public video evidence was necessary to show the true horror of rape” and “help prevent other women from having to go through this”.
The trial is also highly unusual because it can’t rely on the victim’s evidence. “In most rape trials, the alleged rape would be detailed by the victim’s word against the word of the alleged attacker,” Angelique said.
“In this case, the victim was drugged and comatose with no recollection. Instead, the main defendant, Dominique Pelicot, has admitted rape and meticulously kept video evidence. It is that video evidence which is crucial – without it there wouldn’t be a trial. So often, in other rape cases, there is no such video evidence.”
The court proceedings have highlighted confusion over what constitutes consent. “Many of the men on trial with Pelicot argue that they didn’t intend to commit rape, saying they thought Gisèle was pretending to be asleep and that they were pressured into it,” Angelique said. “The courtroom testimony has highlighted how society in general has not yet got a clear understanding of consent.”
Could Gisèle Pelicot’s conduct and the extensive media coverage of the case mark a turning point for attitudes in France, and perhaps elsewhere?
“Many French writers have said this case marks the end of a stereotype of the ‘monster’ rapist - or the notion that rapes are only carried out by strangers,” Angelique said. “Instead it has highlighted the dangers women face in their own homes and within marriages or relationships. Some of the accused men had notable jobs in society such as local councillor, nurse, prison warden or journalist.”
Updated
The court has heard testimony from one more witness – the girlfriend of one of the accused, 31-year-old Gregory S – and will now take a 15-minute break, after which Gisèle Pelicot is expected to take the stand at about 11.30am local time.
Roughly midway through the trial, which is due to last until December, she has been invited by the court to comment on and respond to the evidence and testimony that have been heard so far.
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This week, the court is hearing the cases of six men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot.
They include a 34-year-old prison warden, a 55-year-old electrician, a 32-year-old delivery driver, a 46-year-old mirror-maker and a 31-year-old painter and decorator.
One of the accused, a 47-year-old former factory worker, was driven to the Pelicots’ village by his then girlfriend who waited in the car for him at the time he is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot. A canteen worker, she told the court she did not know what happened that night and had not asked any questions.
All of the six men will be in court when Gisèle Pelicot speaks this morning.
Dominique Pelicot, Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband, who has admitted to drugging and raping her and said he recruited men online to rape her, was sitting in a secure glass-screened area of the court, guarded by two police officers. Every day he is brought to court from his prison cell where he is being held on remand.
Here are some more pictures of Gisèle Pelicot arriving at the courthouse in Avignon this morning:
Who are the men accused of rape and assault?
The 50 men accused of rape and assault alongside Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband, Dominique are aged between 26 and 74. They include a nurse, a journalist, a prison warden, a local councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers. They each face up to 20 years in prison.
In total, 49 are accused of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault. Five others are also accused of possessing child abuse imagery.
Most lived in south-eastern France within a 60km radius of the village of Mazan, where the Pelicots lived. Six have previous convictions for domestic violence, two have convictions for sexual violence. A total of 23 have a criminal record for offences such as drunk-driving and possession of drugs.
Some of the accused men have admitted rape but said they did not set out with this intention, and have apologised in court to Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a grandmother and former logistics manager. Others have denied the charge of rape, saying they believed they were taking part in a game by the couple.
Angelique Chrisafis, who has been following the trial since it began in early September, has been compiling brief pen portraits of the men accused as they appear in court. You can read her full account here:
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Gisèle Pelicot has been hailed as a feminist hero across France, commended for her courage at rallies across the country and applauded by supporters each time she enters or leaves the courtroom in Avignon.
But tributes to her have also come from beyond the country’s borders, with solidarity from Austria to Australia hinting at the role she has played in galvanising a global conversation around sexual violence.
The Guardian’s European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, takes a look at the expressions of solidarity with Gisèle Pelicot that have sprung up around the world:
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Gisèle Pelicot due to take the stand shortly
Gisèle Pelicot is expected to take the stand at about 11am local time. Through her lawyer, she commented on the testimony of the wife of one of the accused men this morning.
A 45-year-old Vietnamese woman testified in connection to her husband, Jean Luc L, a 46-year-old mirror-maker, who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on two occasions in 2018 and 2019.
Jean-Luc L’s wife of ten years, who has two children with him, told the court that because her own mother was ill at the time, she had not wanted sex with her husband and had said no to him over a long period of time. Asked how she felt when police told her of the rape charges against her husband, she told the court in a soft voice, translated by an interpreter: “I was very sad, in shock. But I think because I refused him all the time, as a man he had to look elsewhere.”
Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, told the court: “You thought that because you refused a sexual relationship, because your mother was very ill and your mind was on other things, you thought you had a role in what happened, and Gisèle Pelicot could not help reacting. For her, it’s not because you refused a sexual relationship that it led to this happening. Because there is never an obligation to have sexual relations with your husband. Do you understand that?”
Babonneau continued: “Gisèle Pelicot says you have no responsibility whatsoever in the fact that your husband decided to do what he did.”
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More than a hundred members of the public had queued from before 7am outside the Avignon criminal court to listen to Gisèle Pelicot from an adjacent room where proceedings are transmitted.
“What happened was so horrible that it’s important for a maximum of people to be here to show support,” said one 73-year-old artist from Avignon.
On fortifications opposite the court, a banner read “A rape is a rape.” Across Avignon, many streets had been papered with collage in support of Gisèle Pelicot, with messages such as: “Gisèle – womeon thank you.”
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Gisèle Pelicot arrived at the courthouse shortly before 9am local time and was applauded by onlookers as she has been thoughout the trial, which - after requesting it be open to the public - she has attended almost daily since it began on 2 September.
Franco Info radio’s police and crime correspondent filmed her arrival.
Gisèle #Pelicot vient d’entrer en salle d’audience. pic.twitter.com/jby4VW0wxo
— Juliette Campion (@JulietteCampion) October 23, 2024
Opening summary
Hello. Today, Gisèle Pelicot – the woman at the centre of the mass rape trial that has shaken France – is due to address the courtroom.
Her former husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71, has admitted drugging his then-wife with sedatives and anti-anxiety medication to render her unconscious so that he and dozens of strangers he recruited in online chatrooms could allegedly rape her between 2011 and 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.
The 50 other men on trial, aged between 26 and 74, with professions ranging from fire officer to journalist, are alleged to have been recruited by Pelicot, who said they knew they were being invited to commit rape.
In almost two months of testimony, the court has heard from dozens of accused men. The majority denied rape.
Some of the accused men have admitted Pelicot told them he was drugging his then-wife, but others have said they believed they were participating in a couple’s organised game.
The court heard briefly from Gisèle Pelicot early on the trial but now, at the midway point, judges are giving her the chance to comment on, and respond to, what the court has heard so far.
The Guardian’s Paris correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis, is at the courtroom and we will be bringing you the latest updates from Avignon.
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