The prosecution requested this Monday 20 years in prison For Dominique Pélicotthe man who sexually assaulted his wife for a decade, Gisèle Pelicotthat she drugged and suggested that other men rape her as well. This is the maximum sentence in France for the crime of rape.
The prosecutor of the Avignon Court of Appeal, Laure Chabaud, requested this maximum sentence “with the greatest conviction”, and justified it by the psychology of Dominique Pélicot, whom she described as perverse, egocentric, disturbed manwith multiple sexual deviations who wanted to satisfy his desires without setting “any limits” and without the consent of the victim.
“20 years is a long time (…) Whatever your age, it’s not little. It’s both a lot and too little. Too little considering the severity committed and repeated acts,” argued the prosecutor.
Pélicot, who recognizes the crimes charged, took thousands of photos and videos of the rapesdocuments that became key evidence for the prosecution’s 51 men sitting on the benchthat despite everything most deny committing violationsarguing that they thought the victim agreed.
However, prosecutor François Mayet made it clear from the first moment of his request that “Gisèle Pelicot reduced to an object” and that “consent was not present before or during the act”. The public prosecutor also recalled that there is 20,000 recorded visual documents by the main accused who reveal “the extreme violence of the crimes”.
In a first reaction to the tax request in front of the press, the Lawyer PélicotIsabelle Zavarro said she expected the maximum sentence to be sought, but expressed surprise at the motivations, particularly given the description that was given of her client. “It seems to me that The prosecution decided to distance itself a little from the personality by Dominique Pelicot, which in my opinion can explain certain things”, he commented, implying that he intends to use certain elements of his biography in his defense, such as the alleged abuses that he says he suffered. even suffered in childhood and adolescence.
The events judged in Avignon since September 2 continued between July 2011 and October 2020, first in the Paris region then in the house where the Pélicots had moved during their retirement in the commune of Mazan, near Avignon. Pelicot contacted other men online and invited them to his home, after administering high doses of anxiety medication to his victim, which they left her unconscious, which allowed them to mistreat her without keeping any memories.
It all ended in September 2020, when he He was arrested for recording under women’s skirts in a supermarket in Carpentras and during the search of their computer files, investigators discovered thousands of videos and photos in which appear the violations to which he subjected the victim. The main accused is accused in two other cases of gender-based violence, one for the rape and murder of a woman in 1991 and the other for an attempted rape with a knife in 1999.
The trial against Pélicot and the rest of the rapists, which the victim herself wanted to make public “so that shame changes sides”had a great impact in France, but also in the rest of the world.