Husband accused of brutal gang rape of his wife says before French trial: “I am a rapist like everyone else here”

A French husband accused of drugging his wife for over a decade and recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her has told the court: “I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom.”

Dominique Pelicot, 71, spoke for the first time during his trial and said: “I accept the facts in their entirety.” He is accused of, among other things, rape and gang rape of his ex-wife Gisele Pellicot, as well as various violations of privacy through the recording and distribution of sexual images.

He is on trial along with 50 other men. Fourteen of the other defendants have also admitted to the rape, while the rest deny any wrongdoing.

“They all knew it, they cannot claim otherwise,” he said of his co-defendants in the trial.

The grandfather appeared in the dock at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon after his testimony was delayed due to a week-long illness. He appeared with a walking stick.

Ms Pelicot insisted on a public trial to expose him and the other men accused of rape and shed light on the sexual violence, her lawyers said.

For many, she has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France. On Saturday, hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered in cities across the country to show their support for her.

In a dramatic scene in court on Tuesday, Mrs Pelicot was allowed to respond immediately to her husband's confession, saying: “It's hard for me to hear that.

“For 50 years I lived with a man who I never believed for a second could commit such acts. I had complete trust in this man.”

Wearing a thick grey shirt, Pélicot confessed to crimes for which his own daughter had described him in the dock as “one of the biggest sex offenders” of recent years.

He said: “Today I say that, despite the obligations we all have, I am a rapist like everyone else in this room. You cannot say otherwise.”

He gave further mitigating arguments, saying: “I have been accused of many things. We are not born perverts, we become perverts. Even if it is paradoxical, I have never viewed my wife as an object.”

He added: “I am guilty for what I did. I subjected my wife, my children, my grandchildren to this. I regret what I did. I ask for forgiveness, even if it is not forgivable.” He later said in court of his ex-wife: “I loved her very much for 40 years and for 10 years I didn't… I ruined everything, I lost everything. I should never have done this.”

Pelicot also focused on alleged crimes he suffered as a child, including being raped at the age of nine and being forced to witness another sexual assault at the age of 14. “I don't remember anything from my youth except shock and trauma,” he said.

He told the court how his life changed when he met his wife as a teenager.

“I was very happy with her,” he said. “She was the opposite of my mother, who was completely rebellious. We had three children and grandchildren, whom I never touched.”

He said his wife “didn’t deserve this.”

At the end of her brief explanation, Ms. Pelicot lowered her head and put on her sunglasses.

Pelicot has been in custody since 2020, when he was initially arrested on suspicion of drugging and then raping Ms Pelicot while soliciting men he contacted online to do the same.

Last week, psychologists described him as a sort of “Jekyll and Hyde” figure who acted like a normal husband during the day but then drugged his wife so strangers could rape her at night.

His daughter, 46-year-old Caroline Darian, told the court last week that he was “one of the biggest sex offenders” in recent years.

She accused him of secretly taking nude photographs of her and her two sisters-in-law in the same family home in Mazan, about 20 miles from Avignon, where Pelicot had invited the alleged rapists.

On the witness stand, Pelicot claimed that he also “still loves” his three adult children, saying, “They are in my heart.”

Pelicot was first arrested in September 2020 for secretly filming women up their skirts in a supermarket in Carpentras. His devices were searched and hundreds of pornographic videos and photos of women were found, the court heard.

A hard drive hidden under a printer contained a file called “Abuse,” authorities said. It contained the nicknames and phone numbers of the attackers, as well as around 3,800 photos and videos of rapes committed by Gisèle Pélicot between 2011 and 2020. Investigators have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.

Pelicot's alleged sex ring advertised a page for “partners” on an online forum. Of the 83 men involved, 51, aged between 26 and 73, were identified and arrested by police.

In another case, Pelicot was accused of raping and murdering a 23-year-old real estate agent in Paris in 1991. He also admitted an attempted rape in 1999 after DNA tests confirmed the evidence against him.

The trial for serious rape in Avignon is scheduled to last until December 21.