{"id":18564,"date":"2024-11-24T00:52:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T00:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18564"},"modified":"2024-11-24T00:52:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T00:52:32","slug":"in-stifled-sobs-and-fierce-accusations-family-falls-apart-at-mass-rape-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18564","title":{"rendered":"In stifled sobs and fierce accusations, family falls apart at mass rape trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"ReutersReuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gis\u00e8le Pelicot has attended almost all the trial since it began in September<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

At the epicentre of this devastating family drama is Gis\u00e8le Pelicot, a diminutive 71-year-old woman, drugged by her former husband and abused for a decade by dozens of strangers he had recruited online.<\/p>\n

Watching her entering the court in Avignon and giving evidence, it was staggering to imagine the amount of abuse her body sustained.<\/p>\n

But as other members of her family have taken the stand, it has become painfully clear that no-one has emerged unscathed from the storm unleashed by the actions of the Pelicot patriarch.<\/p>\n

The damage to this family is clear. Individually, they have described the destructive force that engulfed them in November 2020 as a \u201ctsunami\u201d that left nothing but ruin in its wake.<\/p>\n

Dominique Pelicot was finally caught after an alert security guard caught him filming under women\u2019s skirts.<\/p>\n

But it took weeks for police to discover the full truth that ultimately tore his family apart.<\/p>\n

Warning: This story contains details some readers may find disturbing<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

For years, he had been drugging his wife and recruiting men online to rape her while she was unconscious.<\/p>\n

He filmed the abuse and neatly classified each visit in folders on his hard drive. Faced with the evidence, Dominique Pelicot admitted the rape charges against him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alongside obscene language describing his videos, he added captions with the men\u2019s names. Fifty other men have been on trial with him and only a handful admit rape. More than 20 others could not be identified and are still at large.<\/p>\n

Gis\u00e8le Pelicot has attended almost all of this trial. She waived her anonymity and allowed the public to see what she had endured.<\/p>\n

The videos leave no doubt that the sex acts were not consensual. Ms Pelicot can be seen lying on the bed, snoring, as her husband whispers instructions to various men to touch her, prod her, use her.<\/p>\n

Artificial sleep affords her mind a degree of protection, but her body becomes an object. <\/p>\n

She was, in her own words, treated \u201clike a rag doll, like a garbage bag\u201c.<\/p>\n

“I am 72 now and I don’t know how much time I have left,\u201d she told the court last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘You will die lying’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n

The magnitude of Dominique Pelicot\u2019s betrayal and crimes is such that the aftershocks have rippled far beyond his ex-wife.<\/p>\n

The Pelicots\u2019 middle child, Caroline Darian, now 45, screamed her anguish at her father in court as she demanded to know the truth about photos found on his computer. Entitled \u201cMy naked daughter\u201d, the images show her semi-naked and, she says, clearly drugged.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"CHRISTOPHECHRISTOPHE SIMON\/AFP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Caroline Darian accused her father of lying to the court, saying she was convinced he abused her<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

Mr Pelicot has offered various and at times contradictory explanations for the pictures, although he has denied abusing his daughter. \u201cI never touched you,\u201d he pleaded with her.<\/p>\n

But his duplicity has been abundantly exposed during this trial, and he has clearly lost the right to be believed by his daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a liar,\u201d she shouted back at him. \u201cI am sick of your lies, you are alone in your lie, you will die lying.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fighting back tears, she accused her father of looking at her \u201cwith incestuous eyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Caroline Darian has told the court she feels she is the trial\u2019s \u201cforgotten victim\u201d as, unlike her mother\u2019s case, there is no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted on her.<\/p>\n

She has founded a charity to highlight the dangers of drug-induced assault and published a book in 2022 detailing her family\u2019s trauma. In it, she hinted at a rift with her mother, who she found had dropped off a bundle of warm clothes for her father in jail, weeks after his crimes came to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Caroline wrote. \u201cShe was still looking after the person who got her raped for a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

That apparent rift was exploited by a combative defence lawyer who suggested Gis\u00e8le Pelicot had chosen her former husband over her daughter by not demanding the truth about the photos of Caroline. Gis\u00e8le shook her head, but Caroline cracked a slight smile, appearing to acknowledge the lawyer’s description.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Florian, the youngest sibling of the family (L), described the pain his sister Caroline had gone through. His brother David also took the stand<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

When Caroline\u2019s brothers David and Florian took the stand they made repeated references to the pain she was going through, urging their father to tell the truth.<\/p>\n

Stifling sobs, Florian, 38, the youngest of the family, turned to face Dominique Pelicot sitting in a glass box to his left and said: \u201cIf you have any dignity and humanity \u2013 you don\u2019t have anything left to lose anyway \u2013 tell Caroline the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also spoke of his longstanding suspicion he was the product of an affair his mother had in the 1980s, which was compounded by a faint but lifelong feeling that his father loved his siblings more than him.<\/p>\n

In a desperate search for answers, he wondered out loud whether he could be the \u201cmotive\u201d for his father\u2019s crimes. He said he would seek out a paternity test, adding it would be a \u201crelief\u201d not to be Dominique Pelicot\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

Through tears, Florian painted a desolate picture of what his life had become. His marriage to the mother of his three children, Aurore, has not survived revelations that Dominique Pelicot also surreptitiously took photographs of her.<\/p>\n

Despite their separation, this slight, softly-spoken woman has frequently attended the trial and said it had exposed the \u201cbanality\u201d of abuse.<\/p>\n

Aurore, herself a survivor of incest, is having to live with the regret of not having listened to her instincts regarding Mr Pelicot. \u201cIf she had, she may have been able to alter the course of events,\u201d her lawyer said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘My childhood has disappeared’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n

The eldest of the Pelicot children, David, is a burly man of 50 who bears a striking resemblance to his father. <\/p>\n

Taking the stand this week, he described how he had grown closer to Dominique Pelicot when he had himself become a father.<\/p>\n

Then, his voice growing more anguished and clutching the stand as if to steady himself, he recalled the harrowing detail the night his mother told him of his father\u2019s arrest. \u201cAll of us know where we were when the tsunami hit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"REUTERS\/SarahREUTERS\/Sarah Meyssonnier<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Caroline Darian talks to her brother David during a break in the trial in Avignon<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

Naked photographs of his wife Celine, pregnant with their twin daughters, were also found among Mr Pelicot\u2019s files. She was in the bathroom, snapped with a hidden camera.<\/p>\n

His voice heavy with emotion, David described watching his mother, frail and lost, standing on a train platform, her life reduced to her dog and a suitcase.<\/p>\n

Recalling the birthday parties his parents used to throw for him and his siblings, to the envy of their friends, he said: \u201cMy childhood has disappeared; it was erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trauma rippling through this family seems without end. David\u2019s son, now 18, wonders what really happened when Dominique asked him to \u201cplay doctor\u201d as a child.<\/p>\n

His young siblings, the family\u2019s lawyer said on Wednesday, \u201cwill have to find their place in a family in which their grandmother, their mother, their brother and their aunts have all been victims of their grandfather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caroline\u2019s young son is still profoundly shaken by the carefully worded revelation, four years ago, that his beloved grandfather hurt his grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just a sample of the depth of the suffering caused by a rape in the family,\u201d lawyer St\u00e9phane Babonneau said in his closing arguments.<\/p>\n

A verdict is expected on 20 December. Mr Pelicot is facing 20 years in jail \u2013 the maximum sentence for rape in France.<\/p>\n

And for the rest of his family the trauma will live on. Because none of them will ever know for certain what he may or may not have done.<\/p>\n

In one of the shaky phone videos shown in court, a tall naked man stands in the middle of a dark bedroom. Another man sits on the bed, smiling, next to an unconscious woman lying on her side, lightly snoring.<\/p>\n

Behind her, on a chest of drawers, is a photograph, clearly discernible despite the low lighting.<\/p>\n

It is the Pelicot family, huddling close on a beach on a sunny day, and beaming at the camera.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Source: <\/em> www.bbc.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters Gis\u00e8le Pelicot has attended almost all the trial since it began in September At the epicentre of this devastating family drama is Gis\u00e8le Pelicot, a diminutive 71-year-old woman, drugged by her former husband and abused for a decade by dozens of strangers he had recruited online. Watching her entering the court in Avignon and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}