Gisèle Pelicot to consent stand to comment on sexual attack trial evidence so far | Dominique Pelicot sexual attack trial

Gisèle Pelicot, the French majesticmother who has become a feminist hero for insisting that the sexual attack trial of her ex-husprohibitd and 50 other men should be held in accessible, will consent the stand on Wednesday to comment on the evidence so far.

The 72-year-ageder createer logistics deal withr was uncomprehendingly sedated and sexual attackd by her then husprohibitd, Dominique Pelicot, 71, who crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and drinks, and askd men to sexual attack her over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.

Dominique Pelicot has accomprehendledgeted the accuses agetst him and shelp that for almost a decade he was in reach out with men on an online chatroom titled “without her comprehendledge” where he would organise for strangers to come to the couple’s home in the southern village of Mazan to sexual attack his wife while she was in a comatose state in her bed. He shelp he handleed medications to her at mealtimes or in a bowl of ice-cream he brawt to her as she watched TV after dinner.

“I am a rapist, enjoy the others in this room,” Pelicot tageder the court, saying the other men on trial were conscious they were being askd to sexual attack his wife.

“I never, even for a individual second, gave my consent to Mr Pelicot or those other men,” Gisèle Pelicot tageder the court last month, saying she had been “give upd on the altar of vice”.

In almost two months of testimony, the court has heard from dozens of accengaged men. The presentantity denied sexual attack. Some shelp they thought Pelicot was pretending to be asleep or was joining a game, or felt the fact her husprohibitd had consented was enough.

Video evidence of the alleged sexual attacks was discovered by police after Dominique Pelicot was arrested in 2020 after filming up women’s skirts in a superlabelet.

A total of 50 men were identified by police from films accurately labelled and stored by Pelicot. The men on trial aextfinishedside Pelicot face sentences of up to 20 years in prison. In total, 49 men are accengaged of sexual attack, one of tryed sexual attack and one of intimacyual attack. Five others are also accengaged of haveing child unfair treatment imagery.

Aged between 26 and 74, the accengaged comprise a nurse, a journaenumerate, a prison officer, a local councillor, a sagederier, lorry drivers and farm toilers.

Pelicot shelp she felt humiliated by asking from defence lawyers who had argued that the men might have made an error of judgment, or thought she was drunk or pretending to be asleep and complicit.

“I have felt humiliated while I’ve been in this courtroom. I have been called an spiritsic, a conspirator of Mr Pelicot,” she shelp in court last month, inserting that her life had been “ruined” for 10 years.

“In the state I was in, I absolutely could not reply. I was in a comatose state – the videos show that.”

She has been askd by the court pdwellnt to speak as the trial cforfeits the halfway point.

Pelicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus, shelp she did not want a trial behind seald doors becaengage “that’s what her attackers would have wanted”. She wanted the trial to elevate consciousness of the engage of drugging in intimacyual attack.

Thousands have consentn part in street demonstrations apass France in help of Gisèle Pelicot.

The trial runs until 20 December.