A French woman who was drugged and raped by her husband and dozens of other men for more than a decade testified Thursday in a trial that shocked the world.
Giselle Pellicote, 72, gave evidence at the Avignon court, where 51 men, including her partner of 50 years, faced rape charges. Dominic Pellicote, 71, admitted to police that he got satisfaction from watching other men rape his unconscious wife, according to court documents.
“My world is falling apart, for me, everything is falling apart” is how Gisele Pellicote described learning what happened after a police search of content on her husband’s computer.
Gisele Pellicote was called to the police station in November 2020, two months after her husband was arrested for filming up the skirts of three women in a shopping centre. She assumed it was related to that case.
“The police officer asked me about my sex life,” she told the court. “I told him I never practiced partner-swapping or threesomes. I said I am a man woman. I cannot bear the hands of any man except my husband.
She then faced a horrifying revelation when officers showed her images they had taken of her.
“I’m lying idle, in my bed, and I’m being raped,” she said of what investigators uncovered. “These are scenes of barbarism. My world is falling apart, everything is falling apart, everything I have built in 50 years. These are terrifying scenes for me.”
After the officer showed the third photo, Giselle Pellicote told him to stop.
Police found nearly 4,000 photos and videos on her husband’s computer, USB sticks and hard drives, documenting at least 200 rapes from 2011 to 2020, first in the Paris region, but mostly in Mazan, a southern commune of 6,000 where The couple had gone. 2013.
Many of the defendants in the case have denied the allegations against them, claiming they believed they were participating in a consensual act of which both Pellicotes were aware.
“Don’t talk to me about the sex scenes, these are rape scenes, I’ve never practiced threesomes or swinging, I want to say that,” Giselle Pellicote told the court, referring to those claims. “I was never a mate.”
Pellicott said that to her knowledge — there were mostly happy marriages before the discovery, which endured amid health and financial challenges. “Everything we built together is gone,” she said. “Our three children, seven grandchildren. We were an ideal couple.”
“I wanted to disappear,” Giselle Pellicote told the court. “But I had to tell my children that their father was arrested. I asked my son-in-law to stay by my daughter’s side when I told him that her father had raped me and that other people had raped me. She gave a shout that is still etched in my mind.
The court will hear more evidence from the investigation in the coming days. Dominic Pellicote allegedly approached the men through sex-chat websites, invited them to his home and gave strict instructions. Police say the men were told to park outside their home so as not to attract attention, to wait up to an hour for the sleeping pills he gave Giselle Pellicote to take effect, to undress in the kitchen and warm their hands. With hot water or on a radiator. Tobacco and perfume were forbidden, as Dominique Pellicote feared they might arouse his wife, but condoms were not required.
No money trading hands. Most of the other men lived nearby, though Giselle Pellicote said she only knew one.
“He was our neighbor,” she told the presiding judge. “He came to check our bikes. I used to see him in the bakery. He was always polite. I had no idea that he was coming to rape me.
Giselle Pellicote took the unusual step of waiving her anonymity rights so the trial would be open to the public.
“I speak for all the women who take drugs and don’t know about it, I do it on behalf of all the women who may never know,” she told the court, explaining why she refused a closed-door trial. “So that more women don’t suffer.”
Post A French woman who was drugged and raped for 10 years gave a shocking testimony appeared first The Daily Beast.