When Gisele Pelicot’s husband was jailed for allowing strangers to rape her, it signalled the start of a new beginning for the mother-of-three.
But now, the wider-reaching implications of the horror are coming to the surface and threatening to ‘tear her family apart’, her lawyer has said. Brave Gisele, 72, waived her right to anonymity after being drugged by her own husband Dominique Pelicot and raped 92 times by strangers he invited into their bedroom between 2011 and 2020.
The mother-of-three was unknowingly sedated and sexually abused dozens of times at their family home in Mazan, a commune in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France. The former electrician, 71, was sent to jail for 20 years last month following a landmark trial in France. He had kept evidence of the abhorrent acts, storing 3,800 photos and videos of his wife being sexually abused on a USB drive, called ‘abuses’.
Chillingly, there were also images of his daughter, Caroline Darian, 45, which were saved as ‘around my daughter, naked’. As well as being sentenced for drugging and raping his wife, Pelicot was also found guilty of taking indecent images of his daughter and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine.
Caroline fears that she too was abused and is a “forgotten victim”. It has been suggested that traumatised Gisele is reluctant to back her quest to seek justice.
In the courtroom, Caroline’s older brother David, 50, confronted his father about the disturbing pictures found of his little sister asleep, in her underwear. He said: “If you have any little bit of humanity left, tell the truth about what you did to my sister, who is still suffering every day and will suffer all her life”.
Pelicot shouted back that he had never abused his children and asked for forgiveness from his eldest son, to which David replied: “Never”.
Although the three children accompanied their mother in court, the trio – Caroline, David and youngest brother Florian, 38 – sat separately from their mother, and are said to have celebrated the verdict by going for a meal as a trio. Furthermore, Gisele is initially said to have maintained contact with her abuser, sending him clothes in prison, much to the shock of her family.
And in her book I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again, a deeply hurt Caroline wrote: “Because of my father, I am now losing my mother.” And Gisele’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, revealed that the mother’s relationship with her children has fractured since her husband’s disturbing crimes came to light.
“When sexual assault happens within families, it tears the family apart, and that’s what happened here,” he told The Sunday Times. “It’s very sad, that’s why sexual assault has such impact even over generations.”
Indeed, according to psychology experts, it is not unusual for families to pull together through the initial trauma, only to fall apart later. For Gisele, criminologist and psychologist Alex Iszatt believes that keeping in touch with her rapist could be her way of “regaining control and normalising her past”, adding that victims of sexual abuse within families can also experience ‘defensive avoidance’, where parents struggle to admit their failure to protect their children over guilt or fear.
“It may be an attempt to regain control or normalise her past, but for her children, it probably feels like a gut-wrenching betrayal,” Ms Iszatt told the Mirror. “The family ‘sided’ with their mother; they supported her, and in their minds, she doesn’t care.”
“It can also be an attempt to preserve family stability or driven by shame or guilt, particularly if they feel they may have allowed an abuser into their lives,” Ms Iszatt continued. “Some parents who’ve experienced severe trauma themselves may find it difficult to fully engage with their children’s trauma, as it reactivates their own unresolved pain.”
Forensic psychologist Dr Naomi Murphy explained that ‘trauma produces anger’, which is why so many families break under the strain of abuse. “It’s sad but not surprising if there’s currently a rift between Gisele Pelicot and her daughter Caroline Darian,” she said.
“Both are extraordinarily brave women having to confront anyone’s worst nightmare. They’ve both endured the trial of Dominique Pelicot. And they have both responded to the discovery of his crimes with acts of enormous courage. They are brave women with a huge amount of integrity and resilience.
“Whilst most of the focus was on Gisele and how she’d been harmed, it will have been a traumatising ordeal for the entire family. Who wants to discover that your father is not who you thought he was but is in fact a serious sexual predator? And that your mother, who you love so much, has been repeatedly betrayed and victimised by him as well as by countless other men over many years? This knowledge in itself is enough to traumatise the Pelicots’ children.”
As for her ongoing relationship with her daughter, Naomi says they are emotionally in two very different places right now, and those places are often not compatible.
“Gisele will undoubtedly have been focused on just getting through the trial to then be able to focus on her healing journey knowing that some degree of justice has been done. For Caroline, her father’s conviction was just the start,” she said.
“She is left with the ‘awful unknowing’ how she may have been harmed by her father. She has a sense that she has been deeply wronged but no idea if this is true and, if it is, to what extent. Her wish to pursue her father for her own justice is entirely natural but at odds with her mother’s wish for closure.
“Trauma often produces anger. Anger engenders a sense of power. So, in the aftermath of trauma, we can find ourselves feeling very angry and taking it out on those that we love the most. We may find ourselves seeking out conflict in order not to feel fragile.”
Former logistics manager Gisele is aware of just how difficult the road ahead will be as she adapts to her new life with a high profile, and without the husband she loved for 50 years. After the trial, Gisele issued the following statement: “I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild myself. I’m 72 soon and I’m not sure my life will be long enough to recover from this”.
The difficult family dynamic, which isn’t just unique to the Pelicots, speaks to a larger societal issue, Ms Iszatt argues, as she says there might be no chance of repair for the mother-and-daughter relationship. “We expect clear-cut divisions—abuser versus victim, right versus wrong—but abuse isn’t that simple,” she highlighted.
“It distorts relationships, forcing survivors to navigate not just their trauma but the complex expectations of those around them. In the process, family, who should be the greatest source of support, can become the greatest source of pain.
“Abuse doesn’t always lead to a court case, but it still tears families apart. Parents may struggle to support their children, not out of lack of love, but because they can’t face the overwhelming truth of the situation. This avoidance, though well-meaning, causes lasting damage, leaving victims feeling rejected and unsupported, and creating permanent rifts.”
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
