The daughter of convicted rapist Dominique Pelicot has screamed that her father will “die alone like a dog” after he insisted he had never abused her.
Pelicot has admitted to drugging his wife of 50 years, Gisèle, and inviting dozens of strangers he met online to rape her. He has been found guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in jail.
He is also accused of drugging his daughter Caroline Darian when she was just 20 years old and taking photos of her while she was semi naked in lingerie on a bed. Those images were found years later on his computer.
Despite also being found guilty of this act, as well as taking indecent images of his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine, Pelicot insisted on his innocence this morning.
As he professed that he “did nothing” to his daughter, Caroline was heard shouting: “I’ll never see you again! You’ll die alone like a dog!”
In his final statement the 71-year-old Pelicot said: “I would like to look my daughter straight in the eye and tell her that I did nothing [to her].’
Under questioning from his lawyer Maitre Zavarro, Pelicot maintained that he had not abused his daughter.
He said: “Even if she no longer loves me, I know what I did and I know what I did not do. To tell me to die like a dog does not change my feelings for her.
“If I did take those pictures [of Caroline drugged and semi-naked] then I don’t remember taking them.”
The principal suspect completed his final statement this morning. Lawyers for Madame Pelicot will later make their closing statements.
Pelicot admitted that for years he drugged his then wife of 50 years so that he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the assaults.
The appalling ordeal inflicted in what Gisèle had thought was a loving marriage and her courage during the trial have galvanized campaigners against sexual violence and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.
The defendants were all accused of having taken part in Pelicot’s sordid rape and abuse fantasies that were acted out in the couple’s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.
In total, 51 men were convicted for a total of 428 years. The five judges voted by secret ballot in their rulings, with majority votes for the convictions and sentences.
Gisèle’s courage in waiving her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully pushing for the hearings and shocking evidence — including videos — to be heard in open court have fueled conversations both on a national level in France and among families, couples and groups of friends about how to better protect women and the role that men can play in pursuing that goal.
