WARNING DISTRESSING More than 50 men have been convicted of the aggravated rape and sexual assault of Gisèle Pélicot, 72, in her own home between 2011 and 2020
Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter says her dad should ‘die in prison’
The family of multiple rape victim Gisèle Pélicot has been ‘torn apart’ by the trial that saw her husband jailed for two decades, it emerged today.
Ms Pelicot, 72, was surrounded by her three adult children when she first appeared as the main prosecution witness against Dominique Pelicot, also 72. The Frenchman was accused of drugging his wife for almost 10 years, and then allowing scores of men he met online to defile her. But by the time a jury in Avignon in the south of France found him guilty of aggravated rape last month, a deep rift had developed.
Ms Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, told the Sunday Times: “When sexual assault happens within families, it tears the family apart, and that’s what happened here. It’s very sad, that’s why sexual assault has such impact even over generations.”
Mr Babonneau would not be drawn into details of the family row, but they are believed to be related to the Pelicot’s only daughter, Caroline Darian, 46. She insists she too was drugged and attacked by her father, but no evidence has ever emerged to support this claim.
In turn, Ms Darian is angry that her mother has not supported her in her own criminal complaints. Ms Darian has authored a book about her ordeal, in which she writes, ‘Because of my father, I am now losing my mother.’
After 51 men, including Dominique Pelicot, were convicted of various crimes including aggravated rape in December, Ms Darian’s plans for a family party were cancelled. Mr Babonneau would not say if the family even spent Christmas and New Year together.
Instead, he said Ms Pelicot – who divorced her husband in the summer – was now living at a secret address in a French village, and had stop using her married name. This means she has moved away from the former family home in Mazan, near Avignon, where the rapes took place.
Mr Babonneau said she was ‘trying to remain normal, and the way to do that is to return to normal life’. The barrister added: ‘She also has to adjust to the fact she can’t go to the supermarket without being recognised — and she’s not an actor or celeb, it’s just because she participated in a trial.’
Despite the rift, Mr Babonneau said: ‘They are all genuine people trying to cope, and when Gisèle spoke after the verdict her first words were for her family.’
Of the 51 men convicted, 17 have appealed, and there are at least 20 assailants who have never been identified. They were captured in videos shot by Dominique Pelicot of his wife being abused. Such images – which he stored on his own devices – formed prosecution evidence against Pelicot.
It came as Pelicot said he would be fighting accusations that he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl at her parents’ home in Paris in 1995. The woman, now aged 42, has just complained to police in the French capital, and an investigation is underway after she said she recognised her alleged attacker because of the publicity around the Avignon trial.
But Pelicot’s defence lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said ‘he absolutely denies this new accusation. He is absolutely stunned by it’. Pelicot is also under investigation for two unresolved cases in the greater Paris area – an attempted rape in 1999, which he confessed to, and an attempted rape and murder in 1991, which he denies.
