Watch live outside a court in Avignon, France, where a panel of five judges delivered verdicts on Thursday (19 December) for more than four dozen men charged with aggravated rape and sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot.
The French courts found 47 men guilty of rape, two guilty of attempted rape and two guilty of sexual assault, after a three-month-long trial.
Dominique Pelicot, the now ex-husband of the 72-year-old grandmother, has been jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of orchestrating Gisèle’s horrific rape in a crime that shocked the country.
He admitted that for years, he drugged his wife of 50 years out so he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the assaults.
Dominique, also 72, and 50 other men were tried in Avignon for aggravated rape and attempted rape.
Many of the men on trial claimed they were unaware they were raping Ms Pelicot, denied intending to harm her, or shifted all responsibility onto her then-husband, accusing him of manipulation.
Prosecutor Laure Chabaud demanded the maximum sentence for aggravated rape, stating: “The maximum sentence is 20 years, which is a lot ... but at the same time ... too little in view of the seriousness of the acts that were committed and repeated”.
