Pelicot rape trial: Gisèle ‘never regretted decision to go public’ as sobbing ex-husband jailed for 20 years
Ms Pelicot’s ex-husband Dominique Pelicot admitted to drugging and raping her for almost a decade
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Courageous mass rape victim Gisèle Pelicot has said she “led this fight” for her grandchildren, after France’s most shocking mass rape case saw 51 men convicted for a total of 428 years.
Ex-husband Dominique Pelicot wept as he became one of 51 men convicted in a mass rape and sexual abuse trial involving Gisèle Pelicot, that saw her drugged and sexually assaulted over a number of years.
Her children and grandchildren were at the forefront of her mind throughout the three-month long court case in Avignon, southern France. "It’s also for them that I led this fight,” she told reporters outside the court.
“I’m thinking about all the other families affected by this case and the unrecognised victims in these stories that are often in the shadows - you share my struggle,” Ms Pelicot added. She “never regretted” making the decision to waive her anonymity.
Dominique Pelicot has been jailed for the maximum term of 20 years. He previously admitted that for years, he drugged his wife so he and strangers could abuse her while he filmed it.
Prosecutors had requested sentences totalling 652 years, but the sentences handed out by judges came up 224 years short of this.
13 years for man who raped Gisèle Pelicot six times
Charly Arbo, 30, has been sentenced to 13 years in jail.
The former vineyard worker raped Gisèle Pelicot six times, according to the Guardian, including on her 66th birthday when he was 24.
Arbo proposed drugging and raping his own mother with Dominique Pelicot but did not go through with it, according to video evidence.
Crowd outside court chant: ‘Shame on the justice system'
Crowds outside the court have been chanting “shame on the justice system”.
There is dismay among many outside the court on the length of some of the sentences - which are mostly shorter than prosecutors had demanded.
Christelle Vidaller, 35, has been waiting outside the court since 9am. She told Reuters news agency that she was disappointed with the sentences.
“It’s a historical trial, we were expecting historical sentences,” she told Reuters.
Dominique Pelicot's lawyer: Rape trial 'A good thing for justice'
Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists named
Jacques Cubeau
Cubeau, 73, a lorry driver and one of the oldest on trial, is sentenced to five years for aggravated rape, according to the BBC.
Cyrille Delville
The former football player admitted to rape. He was sentenced to eight years for aggravated rape.
Simoné Mekenese
The only defendant who Gisèle recognised, Mekenese lived next door to the Pelicots. He was sentenced to nine years for aggravated rape.
Romain Vandevelde
Vandevelde is sentenced to 15 years, less than what prosecutors asked for, for aggravated rape.
As her husband is jailed for his heinous crimes, we must ask: how many more Gisèle Pelicots are there?
In the beginning, it was simply euphoria. She felt it almost immediately: a sudden surge of energy, an intense, pure happiness. Love? Possibly. Jane, who is using a pseudonym, had never felt anything like it before. For months prior she’d been in a sluggish depression, sleeping too much and, despite her best efforts, finding little pleasure in anything. The date – her first with John* – was a turning point.
Neither wanted the night to end, certainly not Jane. And so their first date spilled over into the following day, and the day after that, and the day after that. For two weeks this feeling – soaring pleasure – kept coming. Suddenly, in this bubble with John, her low mood evaporated, she was excited, fizzing – she barely needed more than four hours’ sleep per night. “We talked about marriage, about children, our life goals,” says Jane.
Special correspondent Zoë Beaty reports:
‘I was drugged by my partner for a year. How many more Gisèle Pelicots are there?’
Gisèle Pelicot’ husband Dominique has been found guilty of drugging her and inviting more than 50 strangers to systematically rape her as she lay unconscious, following a four-month trial that shocked the world. Zoë Beaty speaks to a survivors’ group set up by Caroline Darian – Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter – and one of hundreds of women who are victims of the same crime
Dominique Pelicot cried as verdict read out
Dominique Pelicot appeared to cry while the verdict was being read out, according to a BBC reporter inside the courtroom.
He has been sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison.
Dominique Pelicot considering whether to appeal
Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer has spoken to the press outside the courtroom.
She says “no decision” has been made on whether Pelicot will appeal the verdict.
“I hope that it’s a good thing for justice that these debates were able to take place in the environment they did,” she added. “We felt that the necesary respect was given.
“Mr Pelicot was not necessarily the conductor that was alleged, but its important to actually look at the differnce made between the verdict for Mr Pelicot and for the co-defendants making up this orchestra, as it has been described,” she said, in quotes translated by Sky News.
‘The trial of cowardice’: Gisèle Pelicot’s words during the trial
In an unusual move, Gisèle Pelicot waived her anonymity as a victim of rape, in the hope that it would encourage other victims of rape and sexual abuse to step forward.
Speaking during the trial, Ms Pelicot said: “For me this is the trial of cowardice, there is no other way to describe it.
“When you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to react,” she addressed the men in the courtroom. She said there was no excuse for abusing her when she was unconscious.
"Why did you not leave immediately to report it to the police?," she asked. “It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it looks at rape.”
Pictured: Press waits for courtroom exits
Comment | Where are all the men horrified by Gisele Pelicot’s rape trial?
Gisèle Pelicot’s story is traumatic, extreme, and yet another example of men and their unfair, ingrained social power over women – her experience should be another moment when society says “enough is enough”.
And yet there is a group of people desperately distant from the urgent activism: men themselves.
Pelicot’s powerful testimony to a courtroom about her male attackers should be persuasive enough to reveal to men the gross injustice and deep-rooted unfairness at the heart of our patriarchal society.
It is now on men – all men – to speak out. The harrowing descriptions of a woman being drugged and raped cannot be ignored or passed off as an indefensible extreme which requires no vocal response. Silent disapproval or disgust is not enough.
Daniel Reast writes:
Where are all the men horrified by Gisele Pelicot’s rape trial?
Men must speak out and challenge each other, says Daniel Reast – it’s the least we can do