A woman who was alleged raped by multiple strangers after being drugged by her own husband on Monday faced them all in a packed court room.
Gisèle Pélicot, a 72-year-old Frenchwoman, waived her legal right to anonymity on Monday at the opening of the trial of Dominique Pélicot, 71, and 51 other men.
All are accused of aggravated rape in a trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon, which is due to last for four months.
Twenty of them, including Pélicot, are in custody, while the others remain on bail.
Asked to confirm his name and address at the start of proceedings, Pélicot said: “My home is prison, you know it”.
Ms Pélicot, a frail mother-of-three, was supported by her adult children as she stood in the public gallery, listening to evidence.
The family home, in nearby Mazan, allegedly became a crime scene over almost a decade, when dozens of men were invited to attack Ms Pélicot.
Her husband is said to have used an online platform to contact them between 2011 and 2020.
Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.
They are all being tried alongside Mr Pélicot , a former employee at French utility company, EDF.
In evidence from previous hearings, he said all the men who slept with his wife ‘knew she was drugged’ without her knowledge.
Pélicot said ‘all had free will’ and ‘could have left the premises’ at any time.
Presiding Judge Roger Arata announced first thing on Monday morning that Ms Pélicot would be granted her wish for ‘full publicity’ until the end of the trial.
‘Proceedings will be public,’ said the judge, who is president of a bench composed of five professional magistrates.
Ms Pélicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus, said: ‘She could have opted for a closed trial, but that’s what her attackers would have wanted.’
Despite this, it would be a ‘horrible ordeal,’ said Mr Camus, adding: ‘For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over ten years.
The Pélicots shared a large family house and – outwardly – were highly respectable pensioners with family members who visited regularly.
Neighbours spoke about them as ‘lovely people’ who held parties around their swimming pool, in a well-kept garden, according to court evidence.
In fact, Pélicot was allegedly a multiple rapist who moved his family from greater Paris in 1991, and later allegedly set up the sex ring.
It involved advertising on a site for ‘partners’ on an online forum called ‘Without Her Knowing’.
Participants would discuss performing acts on unwitting partners, and then film their depravity, before storing the videos on a USB drive dubbed ‘Abuses’.
In Pélicot’s case, the data eventually fell into the hand of police, who confirmed it enabled them to identify the 92 cases of rape.
Of the 83 men involved, 51 aged between 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by the police.
Pélicot is said to have sedated his wife by putting tablets of Temesta – a powerful anxiolytic – into her evening dinner.
He then invited strangers from the online forum into the couple's bedroom, so that his wife could be raped while unconscious.
All were told to wash their hands, and not to wear aftershave, so she would not sense they were strangers.
Investigators only learned about the horror in 2020, when Pélicot was arrested in a supermarket in Carpentras for filming up the skirts of other customers.
When police searched his camera phone, and equipment kept at his home, they found all of the abuse images.
Alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a journalist, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers.
A fireman accused of raping Ms Pélicot wore his uniform during the attack, one video shows.
The fireman's computer contained 728 images of children being sexually abused, say prosecutors.
Some of his accomplices claimed they had no idea the sex was not consensual while one denied it was rape, saying: 'It's his wife, he does what he likes with her.'
The case aggravated rape in Avignon continues, and is due to last until December 21.
