Dominique Pelicot sentenced to 20 years in prison in historic French rape trial

Dominique Pelicot has been found guilty on all charges after a historic rape trial that turned the victim, his wife Gisèle Pelicot, into a feminist hero.

He was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison for charges of aggravated rape and attempted rape.

Pelicot pleaded guilty to drugging and raping his wife while unconscious for nearly a decade, inviting other men he had met online to their house to do the same.

Judges also decided all other defendants who participated in Dominique Pelicot's scheme — a total of 51 standing trial — were guilty of at least one charge.

Gisèle Pelicot, who had thought she was in a loving marriage, has stunned France with her openness and courage during the bruising and stunning trial, which has transformed the retired energy company worker into a feminist heroine.

Dominique Pelicot first came to the attention of police in September 2020, when a supermarket security guard caught him surreptitiously filming up women’s skirts.

Police subsequently searched his electronic devices and found a library of homemade images documenting years of abuse inflicted on his wife — more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders with titles including “abuse”, “her rapists” and “night alone”.

The abundance of evidence led police to the other defendants. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different abusers but were not able to identify them all.

Stretching over more than three months, the trial has galvanised campaigners against sexual violence and spurred calls for stricter measures to stamp out rape culture.

For more than three months, the southern city of Avignon and its courthouse have been the scene of appalling testimony and intense debates that have echoed worldwide.

Local feminist groups held regular protests on the sidelines of the hearings and displayed slogans in the courthouse’s surrounding streets. They kept up their efforts on Wednesday night before the verdict, hanging a banner along Avignon’s medieval walls reading: “Thanks Gisèle".

“I think it has changed society already along these four months," activist Fanny Fourès said.

“A lot of men, well, they try to speak more with us, with their girlfriends, with their friends," she added. “There’s a dialog that started."

Changing the definition of consent

The 51 men were all accused of having joined Dominique Pelicot in acting out his sordid rape and abuse fantasies, both in the couple's retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.

Dominique Pelicot testified that he drugged his then-wife with tranquilisers hidden in food and drink, knocking her out so profoundly that he could do what he wanted to her for hours.

One of the men was tried not for assaulting Gisèle Pelicot but for drugging and raping his own wife with the assistance of Dominique Pelicot, who was also tried for raping the other man's wife.

The five judges voted by secret ballot, with majority votes required both to convict and to agree on sentences. Campaigners against sexual violence are hoping for the longest possible prison terms.

Although some of the accused — including Dominique Pelicot — acknowledged they were guilty of rape, many did not, even in the face of video evidence. The trial has thus sparked a broader debate in France about whether the country’s legal definition of rape should be expanded to require a specific mention of consent.

Some defendants argued that Dominique Pelicot’s consent covered his wife, too, while others sought to excuse their behaviour by insisting that they hadn’t intended to rape anyone when they responded to his invitation. Still, others laid the blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were taking part in a genuinely consensual scenario.