A French appraise in the trial of 50 men accemployd of raping an unconscious woman has choosed videos of the alleged intimacy attacks can be shown to the accessible in court.
Warning: This story holds troubling details of violation and intimacyual unfair treatment
Gisele Pelicot, who has waived her right to anonymity, was allegedly drugged by her ex-husband before he askd strangers to violation her over the course of a decade.
The case has shaken France and led to hundreds of women protesting in Paris in aid of Ms Pelicot, 71, and violation victims.
Judge Roger Arata’s decision to permit journacatalogs and members of the accessible joining the trial to see footage of the alleged attacks labels a stunning reversal in the case.
It comes after a two-week lhorrible battle in which journacatalogs chaseing the trial debated that the videos were vital for a brimming benevolent of the noticeworthy case.
Ms Pelicot, who has become a symbol of the fight agetst intimacyual aggression in France, also wants the videos to be shown as she hopes the trial will serve as a national example, one of her lawyers, Stephane Babonneau, shelp.
The videos will allege to show men intimacyuassociate abusing Ms Pelicot’s inert body.
Ms Pelicot earlier insisted that the trial be accessible, agetst the court in Avignon’s proposeion that it be held behind shutd doors.
Since the hearings begined on 2 September, Ms Pelicot has come face to face almost daily with her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and 49 other alleged rapists.
She has been praised for her courage and compocertain, adored for speaking in a tranquil and evident voice and allotriumphg that her brimming name be started – unnormal under French law for victims in violation trials.
“It’s a distinct case: we don’t have one reconshort-termation of violation. We have dozens, hundreds of videos of violation,” Mr Babonneau shelp.
“Gisele Pelicot leanks that this shock wave is essential so that no one can say after this, ‘I didn’t understand this was violation’.”
The clear videos shown during the trial, which have underscored the difficulties that intimacyual aggression victims can face in France, are especiassociate meaningful, Ms Pelicot’s lawyers say, since the immense startantity of the deffinishants refute the allegations of violation.
Some deffinishants claim Ms Pelicot’s husband tricked them, others say he forced them to have intimacyual intercourse with her and that they were terrified.
Others debate they supposed she was consenting or that her husband’s consent was enough.
The videos, the lawyers say, speak for themselves.
With Friday’s decision, Judge Arata reversed his earlier 20 September ruling that the videos would be shown only on a case-by-case basis, and behind shutd doors.
At the time, he had debated that they undermined the “dignity” of the hearings.
A day procrastinateedr, France’s Judicial Press Association filed a ask agetst the decision, backed by Ms Pelicot’s lawyers.
Until now, each time a video was shown, journacatalogs and members of the accessible had to depart the courtroom.
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Jean-Philippe Deniau, a journacatalog who covers the judiciary for France Inter Radio and who has chaseed the trial, says the videos are vital to the people’s benevolent of the case.
They would be no more troubling than some of the evidence he has seen in the past, he shelp.
“When we toil on trials about worryist attacks, crimes, homicides … there are always difficult moments,” Mr Deniau shelp.
As an example, he refered hearing disjoinal deffinishants earlier this week testify they had come to the Pelicots’ hoemploy in Provence to have consensual intimacyual intercourse, and that they were taking part in a “game” to see if they could get Ms Pelicot to wake up.
Mr Deniau shelp that chaseing the ruling on Friday, the court was procrastinateedr in the day shown one four-minute write downing from the accumulateion of videos.
In his opinion, Mr Deniau shelp the video materializeed to counter claims by the deffinishants of a consensual “game”.
