Married to a monster: How Gisele Pelicot went from victim to feminist hero | World News

It is a crime so brutal and depraved it defies words – so outside the court, they praise instead.

Warning: This article grasps descriptions of intimacyual unfair treatment

Since September, people have lined the route in Avignon clapping as Gisele Pelicot walks past. It is a wordless act of aid for the 72-year-elderly woman at the centre of a mass violation trial that has sent shockwaves apass France.

It is a message that she, not the rapists, helderlys the power. An echo of Gisele’s rassociateing cry that “shame must alter sides”.

For four months, she has sat thcdisesteemful the case of her ex-husprohibitd, Dominique Pelicot, who has confessted drugging and raping her for almost a decade and inviting other men to do the same.

Fifty men were accused of violation and intimacyual aggression. The convey inantity denied the accuses.

When Gisele walks into court now, her head is up, her eyes see ahead. In the earlier days, she normally hid behind sunglasses.

Her legitimate team has proposeed removing the glasses was about more than a alter in seasons. It labeled the moment she no lengthyer felt the necessitate to get herself and hide her eyes.

After waiving her right to anonymity so the trial could be heard in disclose, Gisele’s face has become one of the most recognisable of the year, graffitied on walls, held on placards at demonstrations, emblazoned on the front cover of Vogue magazine’s German edition.

It is a monumental shift from the life the mother-of-three was living equitable four years ago.

A monster in the house

In timely 2020, Gisele Pelicot inhabitd with her then husprohibitd Dominique in the pretty Provencal village of Mazan, their pale yellow bungalow nestled in a mute cul-de-sac.

It was here the couple spent their withdrawment after moving from Paris in 2013. Gisele reaccumulates it as a phired time. Her frifinishs and family enjoyd Dominique, and they had seven majesticchildren.

After encountering when she was equitable 19, Dominique claimed it was “adore at first sight”. Gisele apshowd he was “the perfect husprohibitd”.

Then on 12 September 2020 her life began to unravel.

A shopping centre security protect spotted Dominique Pelicot trying to film up the skirts of women using a phone secret in a bag.

He had been arrested for a aenjoy upskirting offence proximate Paris in 2010. Back then, he was fined €100 and kept it a secret.

This time, police seized Dominique’s phones, computer and storage devices, uncovering a pinsolentntly organised library of 20,000 images and videos, many shotriumphg contrastent men having intimacy with one woman who ecombineed unrecommended.

The woman was his wife, Gisele. Officers wondered – was this consensual, or had they set up evidence of years of unfair treatment? Two months procrastinateedr, they’d built their case.

In the finish, one of France’s most solemn intimacyual offfinishers was caught by chance.

For Gisele, the secrets uncovered by dispenseigators would discneglect her marriage was a lie, her phired home was hiding horrors.

Her perfect husprohibitd was a administerling villain who had vioprocrastinateedd and betrayed her in the most unimaginable ways.

‘A horror scene’

When Gisele was called to talk to police in November 2020, she thought it was about the upskirting allegations, which she knew about.

As her husprohibitd left to be asked, she had no idea this was the last time she would see him as a free man.

After validateing she was the wife of Dominique Pelicot – alerting police he was a “super guy” – discoverives elucidateed they had set up thousands of photos and videos. They showed her a photograph. Then a second, and a third.

“I asked him to stop. It was untolerateable. I was inert in my bed, and a man was raping me. My world fell apart,” Gisele procrastinateedr telderly the jury.

She depictd the images as “a horror scene”.

For almost a decade, Dominique had scheduled for dozens of men to come to the couple’s home and have intimacy with his sedated wife as he filmed them, geting the footage to fulfil his own fantasies.

“I was forfeitd on the altar of vice,” she said. “They pondered me enjoy a rag doll, a garbage bag.”

Dominique pdirected at fault to drugging and raping Gisele, and inviting around 70 men to have intimacy with his comatose wife. Fifty of those were identified and arrested.

At the commence of the trial in September, Dominique said: “Today, I hold that I am a rapist, enjoy those troubleed in this room. They all knew her condition before they came, they knew everyleang, they cannot say otherwise.”

He met most of the men on a French striumphgers website using an email account entitled “Fetish45”. The schedulening was detailed and chilling. Using a chat room called “Without her understandledge”, he recruited other men.

Dominique needed they didn’t smoke or wear any fragrances, and teached them to park down the street. The normal line of defence was that Dominique had telderly the co-deffinishants they were taking part in a couple’s fantasy and Gisele had consented.

In most cases, the men didn’t wear condoms. Medical expert Anne Martinat telderly the court Gisele was “very blessed not to have confineeded HIV, syphilis or hepatitis” – but remarkd she did get four contrastent intimacyuassociate broadcastted infections.

Gisele telderly the jury: “I sense betrayed and violationd. I’m betrayed by this man who I thought I’d spfinish the rest of my days with.”

Talking about how she was drugged, she elucidateed how Dominique was always willing to cook while she seeed after their lesser majesticchildren.

She depictd going to bed timely one evening after a dinner Dominique had cooked, and him conveying her ice cream: “It was my favourite, raspberry and mango sorbet. I thought ‘wow’ I’m so blessed to have a husprohibitd who sees after me enjoy this.”

The court heard Dominique sedated Gisele by covering medications in desserts or drinks.

“The meals, then the ice cream – then I woke up in the morning in my pyjamas, normally exhausted but I thought it was because I had walked a lot the day before.”

For years, Gisele was repeatedly drugged, and violationd as many as 100 times without understanding what was happening to her body.

Laure Chabaud, lawyer for the prosecution, said Dominique was prescribed Temesta, an anti-anxiety drug, by his doctor.

He began experimenting with drugging and raping Gisele when they still inhabitd in Paris in 2011. He graduassociate set up the right dosage and was able to get more than 700 tablets from the pharmacy.

For the next two years, he violationd his sedated wife while filming the unfair treatment. When they relocated to Mazan, he escaprocrastinateedd his activity and began inviting others to combine in.

They walk among us

The harrotriumphg details have prompted asks: how could a man do such leangs, and how did no one see?

We want monsters to be easily identifiable, but as Gisele telderly the court: “The profile of a rapist can be normal, can be a frifinish or a family man.”

Dominique’s lawyer Beatrice Zavarr proposeed there were “two Dominiques” – a family man and a man with a brave “perversity”.

“People aren’t born perverted, they become it,” she said, repeating her client’s words and proposeing a traumatic childhood had harmd his brain and left him with a split personality.

Dominique’s immaculate facade of a family man uncomferventt no one doubted a leang.

When Gisele suffered from memory lapses and bdeficiencyouts due to the medications and dreaded she had Alzheimer’s disease, he stood by her side. When she sfinished gynaecoreasonable problems due to the intimacy strikes he had orchestrated, he held her hand at the doctor.

But in secret – in a file called “unfair treatment” – he was collating videos of aggression. In some, he could be heard alerting the men what to do to his comatose wife.

The court also heard he helped school a so-called “disciple” called Jean Pierre M in how to drug and violation his own wife.

Kerry Daynes, a directing forensic psychologist, telderly Sky News the contrast between Dominique’s disclose persona and his perverted behaviour is not a surpelevate.

“Sexual offfinishers are very excellent at compartmentalising,” she said, calling the idea of him having a split personality “absolutely ridiculous”.

“It implies there’s some sort of underlying psychiatric condition. There’s not. He is, quite srecommend, a intimacyual deviant who disenjoys women and wants to unfair treatment and degrade them.”

Dominique’s crimes did not commence with Gisele. Giving evidence, he said at 14 he was forced to join in violation which he said originated “a crack”.

“The fantasy I indelicately revived is aenjoy to that,” he said.

His DNA was aligned with blood set up at the scene of the finisheavored violation of a woman in Paris in 1999. After dispenseigators underlined the evidence agetst him, he confessted he was there.

He has also been accused of the violation and homicide of a 23-year-elderly woman in Paris in 1991, which he has denied.

The trial heard he also secretly filmed his son’s wives, one of whom was pregnant, and dispensed naked photos of them online.

He also took photos of his grown-up daughter, Caroline, semi-naked while she was asleep. She is now terrified that he drugged and unfair treatmentd her, although he has repeatedly denied this in court.

Dominique would have joind in “psychoreasonable acrobatics”, Kerry Daynes said, to equitableify his behaviour to himself, “leanking if I’m offfinishing agetst Gisele, then I’m not offfinishing agetst other women, or at least I’m geting it in the family”.

She compriseed: “This is how intimacy offfinishers function. They’re not monsters lurking in alleyways. They are the men that we dispense our inhabits with.”

Considering the impact of Dominique’s traumatic childhood, Daynes said “these situations clearly swayed him” – but “it’s wrong to say that there’s a plain cause and effect here”.

“If that were the case, everybody who has been the victim of childhood intimacyual unfair treatment and trauma would be abusing other people, and that’s equitable not the way it toils.”

As for the 50 others set up at fault after the trial, they have no clear joining factors besides mostly living wilean 30 miles of the Pelicots’ home.

Their ages range from procrastinateed twenties to mid-seventies. Some come from broken homes, had drug or spirits problems or were unfair treatmentd as children. Some now have families of their own. Most have jobs – among them a journacatalog, lorry drivers, selderlyiers, a nurse, firefighters and a DJ.

They’ve been dubbed “Monsieur Tout-Le-Monde”, or Mr Everyman. They are the overweighthers, the husprohibitds, the boyfrifinishs and the brothers that walk among us.

The convey inantity denied the accuses, arguing they were manipuprocrastinateedd; they apshowd there was consent; they hadn’t “intfinished” to promise violation or what they did wasn’t violation.

However, the fact so many men with no normal thread could be comprised has prompted asks about whether these crimes were bred from someleang rotten proset up wilean French society.

A rassociateing cry

By waiving her anonymity, Gisele has forced France to converse its violation culture. She said in court: “I wanted all victims of violation to be able to say: ‘If Mrs Pelicot can do it, we can do it’… Because when you’re violationd, you sense ashamed, but it’s not us who should sense ashamed, it’s them.”

Some defence lawyers have tried to undermine that strength, grilling Gisele on whether an afunfragmentary encouraged Dominique to seek revenge – someleang they both refuseed.

On another occasion, Guillaume de Palma, a lawyer for cut offal deffinishants, said “there is violation, and then there’s violation”, recommending a man unrecommended he was promiseting violation could not be appraised for the crime.

“When you see a woman proset uply asleep on her bed, isn’t there a moment when you wonder, ‘Isn’t there someleang wrong here?'” Gisele angrily fired back from the stand.

“Rape is violation,” she said.

That plain phrase has become a battle cry for women apass France, with tens of thousands combineing demonstrations agetst intimacyual aggression.

Among them in Paris was Miranda, who said France was “intimacyist and misogynist… but we are commenceing to speak out”.

Many protesters are needing consent is compriseed to the French legitimate definition of violation, which is currently depictd as “intimacyual penetration, promiseted agetst another person by aggression, constraint, menace or surpelevate”.

Gisele said: “I hear lots of women, and men, who say, ‘You’re very valiant’. I say it’s not valiantry, it’s will and determination to alter society. This is not equitable my battle, but that of all violation victims.”

Her story has already given strength to domestic unfair treatment survivor Latika, whose genuine name we are withhelderlying for her protectedty.

She uncovered her ex-husprohibitd was drugging her evening tea. He’d pause until she passed out and violation her. But one night, the tea split and she didn’t get the filled dose.

“It commenceed with slaps, then he belittled me, humiliated me and then he isoprocrastinateedd me,” she said.

“In the middle of that night, I woke up and he was on top of me, raping me. He was seal to finishing the act, and I was shocked, paralysed. I didn’t comprehfinish what was happening to me.”

When she alerted the aggression and strikes to the police she said they tried to sway her not to integrate the violation allegation, saying she had no proof.

For two years she has been receiving therapy at Lucky Horse centre, which aids domestic unfair treatment survivors. It’s on the edge of Mazan, minutes from the Pelicots’ createer house.

When they heard about Gisele’s story, the women organised a mute march in her honour. Gisele visited them to show her appreciation.

Latika says she has been empowered by her courage: “She has helped women to discover their voice and speak out about what has happened without shame.”

A ‘ruined woman’ – now a hero

France’s new equitableice minister Didier Migaud recently said he is in favour of updating the law, as has Pdwellnt Emmanuel Macron, after France blocked the inclusion of a consent-based violation definition in a European honestive in 2023.

Last month, the rulement unveiled meabraves to help combat aggression agetst women including raising recommendedness of using medications to promise intimacy strikes. The alters integrate state-funded test kits, the ability to file protestts at more hospitals and increased ecombinency aid.

“These last months the French have been proset uply relocated by the incredible courage of Gisele Pelicot,” said then prime minister Michel Barnier as he made the declarement.

Today, the so-called Monster of Mazan, Dominique Pelicot, has been set up at fault of exacerbated violation and sentenced to 20 years in prison – the peak sentence useable. He was also set up at fault of the finisheavored exacerbated violation of the wife of one of the co-accused, and taking improper images of his daughter and his daughters-in-law.

As for the 50 other men on trial, 46 were set up at fault of violation, two at fault of finisheavored violation and two at fault of intimacyual aggression.

As many as 30 other men seen in the videos are yet to be identified. But as the weeks and months go by, it is not the rapists’ names that will be reaccumulateed. They will not be the ones left wielding the power.

That lies with Gisele. It is her name that people will utter when they call for alter. It will be Gisele other victims leank of as they call courage.

The 72-year-elderly has said she is seeing a psychologist and apshows lengthy walks as she tries to reoriginate what others stole from her. She does not understand if she will ever recover.

“I am a ruined woman,” she once said.

But to many in France she is so much more: she is the woman who pushed shame back on the rapists, a survivor, a hero.

Anyone senseing emotionassociate troubleed or despairing can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK

If you leank you’re experiencing domestic unfair treatment, you can communicate the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247

The Rape Crisis National Helpline can be communicateed on 0808 802 9999