Dominique P.’s trial in Avignon will be held in public, as the request for a closed session has been rejected

The trial of Dominique P., a pensioner accused of having drugged his wife and recruited dozens of strangers to rape her over a ten-year period, began on Monday 2 September in Avignon and will be held in public, at the request of the private prosecution, which was rejected.

“The debates will be public”“This is the first time that the court has been closed for half an hour,” said Roger Arata, president of the Vaucluse criminal court, which is made up of five professional judges.

Through one of his lawyers, M^my Stéphane Babonneau, the main victim, Gisèle P., 72 years old, red-haired and with a bob cut, had indicated that she wanted “a complete, total announcement, until the end”Like her, the couple’s three children, all civil partners, also wanted the hearings to be public.

The prosecutor had defended the closed-door session, pointing out that videos of the events, filmed by the husband, would be published. “necessarily seen” and so? “Not only would the publicity of the debates be dangerous, but [elle] It would also violate the dignity of people.”. “It doesn’t have to be a show”Some defense attorneys had also asked.

The trial, extremely unusual due to the total number of defendants, 51, aged between 26 and 74, will take place in the presence of the public and the press, for four months, until December 20. The defendants revealed their identity, profession and place of residence one by one on Monday morning in court.

Chemical presentation question

“My house, you know, is the prison”Dominique P., 71, husband and main defendant, replied somewhat provocatively. A stocky man with white hair, dressed in a black T-shirt, he was not wearing an anti-Covid mask, unlike the other defendants, thirty-three of whom appeared free.

Emblematic of the issue of chemical subjugation, this trial gave rise, even before its opening, on Monday morning, to a demonstration by about fifteen members of two feminist groups, Les Amazones d’Avignon and Dare feminisme 84, in front of the Avignon courthouse. “Rapists, we see you, victims, we believe you”they chanted, dressed in black.

“It is an extraordinary trial”For his part, the lawyer of two defendants, Roland Marmillot, stated that the facts “they are part of a mental abnormality” of the husband, but also because he “He wants to take fifty defendants with him in his madness”.

During the investigation, the husband admitted that, on some nights, he administered powerful anxiolytics to his wife, without her knowledge. He most often feared her. He then had her raped by men he contacted via the Internet. The first events date back to 2011, when the couple were still living in the Paris region, and then continued until autumn 2020, after their move to Mazan in 2013.

“He is ashamed of what he did, it is unforgivable”his lawyer, M., pleaded with the press on Monday morning.^my Béatrice Zavarro, believing that we are in this matter “in a form of addiction” : “My client’s attitude is that he acknowledges what he did and there has not been an ounce of dispute from the beginning.”

Feeling of “omnipotence” over the female body.

Firefighter, craftsman, nurse, prison guard or even journalist; single, married or divorced: most of the accused went to prison once, ten several times, sometimes up to six times. They do not suffer from any notable psychological pathology, according to experts, who nevertheless point out their feeling of “omnipotence” in the female body.

Many still maintain that they only thought they were participating in the fantasies of a libertine couple. But “everyone knew it” Gisèle P. was drugged and unconscious, her husband always maintained. For the record, “Each individual had free will” and there could be “leave the premises”.

For men, recruited from coco.gg, a dating site accused of being a “den of sexual predators” and closed since June, the instructions were strict, so as not to wake the victim: no perfume or cigarette smell, and warm your hands by running them under hot water.

Gisèle P. didn’t realize anything, until she discovered everything, at the age of 68, when the investigation began in the fall of 2020, after almost fifty years of cohabitation: her husband had just been caught in a shopping center filming under the skirts of customers. For her, the trial will be “an absolutely terrible test”M. confided^my Antoine Camus, one of her lawyers. She “She will experience for the first time, in a deferred manner, the violations she suffered for ten years”because she doesn’t have any “without memory”Dominique P., who participated in the rapes and filmed them, did not demand any financial compensation.

He is also accused by the pole. “unsolved cases” of Nanterre, in the Paris region, in two other cases: a murder-rape in Paris in 1991, which he denies, and an attempted rape in Seine-et-Marne in 1999, which he admits, after being confused by his DNA.