The man who drugged his spouse in a mass rape case in France stated: you’ll die alone

Tensions on the French mass rape trial exploded Wednesday when Dominique Pelicot’s daughter Caroline shouted to her father from throughout the courtroom that he would “die alone like a canine.”

Caroline Darian, 45, has repeatedly stated she is satisfied her father drugged and abused her after half-naked pictures of her sleeping had been discovered on his laptop computer.

He denied abusing her, however admitted drugging his spouse Gisèle for a decade and recruiting males on-line to rape her of their residence when she was unconscious.

Dominique Pelicot and 50 different males have been on trial since September and the decision is predicted on December 20.

During an emotional day in courtroom in Avignon, Gisèle Pelicot’s attorneys gave their closing arguments, describing the historic nature of the trial and paying tribute to her braveness in giving up anonymity to carry the mass rape trial into the open.

In her statements to the courtroom Caroline spoke of her misery at what she says are persistent lies from her father.

Earlier this week, in a voice filled with emotion, she informed the courtroom that her life had “stopped” when police had been first proven pictures of her from her father’s laptop computer in 2020.

On Wednesday, Dominique Pelicot had the prospect to talk to her daughter as she took the stand for the final time on this trial.

The important defendant stated he nonetheless wished he had Caroline’s help.

“Some may chortle, but it surely’s my daughter I’d like to have the ability to have a look at within the face. It hurts to see her like this,” he stated, sitting in a glass field a number of meters from his daughter and the remainder of his household.

“I might like to see her, I might love to speak to her,” he added. As her voice wavered, Caroline’s rose: “I’ll by no means come to see you. Never. You will die identical to a canine,” he shouted.

“We will all die alone,” he replied. “You particularly,” she replied.

It was the final public trade between a father and daughter who by all accounts had had, for a few years, an affectionate and shut relationship.

Mr. Pelicot recalled visiting her in hospital whereas she was recovering from surgical procedure as a toddler so he might hug and luxury her, and sharing reminiscences of her adolescence.

When he informed her once more that he would all the time love her even when she stopped loving him, she appeared forward in silence, tears streaming down her face, however she did not reply.

Only later, on the finish of the session, did he strategy the stage the place his father sat and shout: “You had been two months outdated (really)!”

During questioning, Mr Pelicot additionally stated he was a intercourse addict and that being caught by police in November 2020 had “unburdened” him.

He denied that his crimes towards his spouse had been triggered by an inferiority complicated or a need for revenge for an affair he had together with her within the Eighties.

Asked what he considered chemical subjugation – drugging somebody for the aim of coercion or assault – he replied: “It’s crap. Annihilate every part. It ought to by no means be carried out.”

The statements of Mr. Pelicot had been adopted by closing arguments from Gisèle Pelicot’s authorized group.

Lawyers for the opposite 50 defendants will current their closing arguments beginning subsequent week. They are anticipated to additional discover the protection that most of the males can’t be responsible as a result of they didn’t notice Ms Pelicot was unconscious and subsequently didn’t “know” they had been raping her.

For practically three hours, Mrs. Pelicot’s attorneys, Antoine Camus and Stéphane Babonneau, informed the horrific story of Dominique Pelicot’s crimes, peppering their story with literary references.

“Everyone contributed to this monstrosity, at their very own stage, and allowed one girl’s ordeal to proceed. It is the banality of (thinker) Hannah Arendt’s evil,” Camus stated.

They requested judges to concern sentences that mirrored the extent of the struggling of Gisèle Pelicot and her household.

Camus stated he was conscious of the “expectations and hopes on this room and past” for the trial, which he known as historic, as a result of “we would like it badly, urgently and we’d like it.”

Leaning closely on the idea of free will, he rejected the protection’s competition that most of the males who allegedly raped Ms. Pelicot did so as a result of that they had been intimidated, manipulated or deceived by her husband. “Manipulation will not be hypnosis,” he stated.

The truth that everybody was conscious that Mr Pelicot was additionally “recruiting” many different males must be taken into consideration by the judges, he added.

“Everyone who entered that home of horrors knew that others had come earlier than him and others would observe him,” Camus stated.

Her colleague painted a devastating image of Mrs Pelicot’s life since her husband’s crimes grew to become identified.

Stéphane Babonneau then described what had led Ms Pelicot – then residing in a small village below her maiden identify – to resign her anonymity and open the trial to the general public and the media.

It was in 2023, he stated, when French media started reporting on the Pelicot case utilizing pseudonyms that “a sense of insurrection started to take possession of Gisèle Pelicot.”

“He determined to take again management of his life. It was time for Shame to vary sides.”

The will to cease hiding had woke up in her, she stated, as a result of she had carried out nothing unsuitable. And she thought the main points of her case and the movies of the alleged assaults would assist reveal the fact of the rape.

“In order for her story to be helpful and to assist different ladies, she realized she had to surrender the anonymity that had served her for years,” Babonneau defined. “She needed to settle for that she would endlessly be a sufferer of Mazan’s rapes.”

The lawyer additionally urged judges to not settle for that the defendants made a “mistake” when – as some have alleged – they raped Ms Pelicot unintentionally or “out of stupidity or ignorance”.

“If you settle for the proper to be unsuitable, what’s to cease one other man tomorrow from saying that when a girl informed him ‘no,’ he really bought ‘sure’? That he additionally made a mistake?”

“I ask you to refuse the proper to make errors that will endanger society – and on the threat of seeing extra Gisèle Pelicots,” Babonneau stated.

He concluded by paying tribute to Mrs Pelicot and stated the trial can be a “legacy” for future generations: “They will hear the identify Gisèle Pelicot, they may hear about her braveness and the value she paid.”

Turning to take a look at Ms. Pelicot, he stated, “You did your job. You went past what was anticipated of you.”

“Now cross the baton to others to hold on the struggle you by no means selected.”

Gisèle Pelicot, to her proper, wiped her eyes.