Gisèle Pelicot was confronted this Tuesday with the 51 accused of having raped her for years, including her ex-husband, who drugged her to be able to abuse her in an unconscious state. The scar they caused “will never close,” said the woman in her last statement in these proceedings before the Avignon criminal court.
“I am angry with these men because at no time did they stop, at no time did they report. They came to satisfy their sexual urges. They could stop at any time and none of them were reported. “It attracts attention,” he denounced, turning towards them and pointing at them. When did they ask my permission when they raped me, he shouted?
“The scar will never heal,” adds Pélicot, who estimates that during the almost ten years that the abuse organized by her husband Dominique continued, she suffered around 200 rapes. “I lost ten years of my life that I will never get back,” said the victim, who recalls that she is now 72 years old.
Pélicot also took advantage of her last intervention in the process to reflect on the costs of the legal procedure, which she herself decided to conduct openly as was her right despite the fact that “I knew what I was in for.” was exhibiting,” she regretted. having heard “unacceptable things” from the start, which shows the re-victimization that the complainants continue to face.
Gisèle Pelicot indicated on several occasions that she had decided that the hearings were public so that “shame could change sides” and insisted this Tuesday that she hoped that “sexist society opens its eyes and changes its look at rape. Regarding her husband’s behavior, she felt that he was experiencing “great sexual frustration”, but as he knew that she would not agree to participate in swingers’ clubs, he chose to drug her “to make me what he wanted,” she added. .
The facts judged took place in the house where the Pélicots had settled during their retirement, in the town of Mazan, near Avignon. Her husband made contact with other men on an online platform dedicated to sexual encounters and invited them to his home after administering large doses of anxiolytics to his wife which left her in a state of unconsciousness, allowing them to mistreat her. without keeping any memories. Dominique Pelicot recorded and took photographs of these rapes, documents which became the main evidence against him.
The president of the court decided to take a brief break this morning after what was one of the hardest interventions of the hearing from an emotional point of view for Gisèle Pelicot, in particular because of the questions which were put to her posed by defense lawyers. Notably those of Nadia El Bouroumi, who is the lawyer for two of the defendants, and who criticized the victim for her alleged indulgence towards her ex-husband and not towards the other defendants.
The trial is therefore entering its final stretch. After the last statement today from Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot, the pleadings of the lawyers of the private prosecution should begin this Wednesday and next week it will be the Prosecutor’s Office which will request the sentences of the accused before the intervention of their lawyers.
