A young vineyard worker accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on six occasions over four years when she had been drugged by her husband also proposed drugging and raping his own mother, a court has heard.
Charly A, 30, is one of 51 men on trial over the rape of Gisèle Pelicot, whose then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence. Dominique Pelicot has admitted the charges, telling the court: “I am a rapist.”
Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a former logistics manager, has become a feminist hero after insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and the other men be held in public to raise awareness of the use of drugs and sedation to rape women, having said: “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
Charly A, a vineyard worker who later packed lorries for a cement company, is accused of driving to the Pelicots’ home on six occasions between 2016 and 2020 to rape Gisèle Pelicot in her bedroom alongside Dominique Pelicot, who had drugged her into a comatose state.
On the first occasion, Charly A was aged 22 and Gisèle Pelicot was aged 64. Charly A and Dominique Pelicot are also accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot in her bed on the night of her 66th birthday.
Charly A denied rape, saying: “I never had the intention to rape.” He said Dominique Pelicot, whom he had met online, had invited him to the couple’s home and told him that Gisèle Pelicot would be “pretending to be asleep”. He said: “I was told it was a scenario in which she was asleep. In that scenario, she was consenting. For me, I didn’t intend to rape. I didn’t want to rape her, I didn’t want to do something bad to that family.”
Charly A had spent part of his childhood in Mazan and lived a 30-minute drive away.
Video evidence showed a whispered conversation in Gisèle Pelicot’s bedroom between the two men, in which they discuss a plan to drug and rape Charly A’s mother in the same way. In the footage, Charly A says he will give an address and date for this to take place. Both men told the court this conversation took place, but said they did not rape Charly A’s mother.
Charly A’s mother, a personal care assistant and mother of three, had lived in Mazan and in different parts of the Vaucluse area of southern France.
Charly A was asked in court why he had suggested he and Dominique Pelicot rape his mother. He said he was afraid of Dominique Pelicot, who had asked him if there was another woman in his family or entourage who he would like to rape or see raped.
Charly A said he suggested his own mother “because it was the only woman who came to mind”. He said Dominique Pelicot was “insistent”, so he gave him a photo of his mother. Charly A told the court he had never intended to go through with it and kept making excuses. He said: “I gave the excuse that my little brother was home and my mother had to look after him, so he couldn’t come. Because I wasn’t OK with it.”
Dominique Pelicot gave Charly A three sedative tablets wrapped in silver foil in order for him to sedate his mother, explaining that he should crush them into her food. Charly A told the court that he threw the pills out of his car window that night and never used them. Dominique Pelicot contradicted this, saying that Charly A had instead returned the drugs to him.
Asked in court if he was angry with his mother or hated her, Charly A said he was not. He told the court: “I love my mum as any son loves their mum, nothing special.”
Police testing on a hair sample from Charly A’s mother showed a very low presence of sedatives consistent with a sporadic or single use of sedatives. She told police she had never used that type of medication. “I don’t know how it could be in my body. I don’t understand,” she said.
A court psychiatrist who interviewed Charly A said his “very intense use of pornography” from his early teenage years – including what the psychiatrist called pornographic cliches about mothers and older women – had played a role in his objectification of women.
The psychiatrist said the fact that Charly A regularly went to the Pelicots’ home in December, around Christmas time and in January, could have been related to his depression at having a dysfunctional family, affected by divorce and separation, around the holiday period.
Other accused men have said they were lonely at Christmas. One 63-year-old who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot but denied it, said he was “lonely” as “Christmas was approaching and I was going to be on my own again”. Another man, 37, who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot one New Year’s Eve and also denies it, said he “had nothing else to do” because his brothers hadn’t invited him to their New Year’s party.
The trial in Avignon continues until 20 December.
