The Pelicot Rape Case: A Town on Trial (2024) Movie Script
So many times, I said to myself
how lucky I am
to have you at my side.
A kind and considerate man
who I trusted entirely.
How can the perfect man
have got to this?
How could you have betrayed me
like this?
How could you have brought
these strangers into my bedroom?
We're going to take you to France.
This is a really distressing story.
A 71-year-old has admitted drugging
and raping his wife
over a period of ten years.
He also invited other men
to do the same.
This case has captured
the imagination of the world.
It's unlike anything
we've ever seen before.
Many questioning now,
how such dreadful sexual violence
could take place on such a big scale.
He was able to manipulate
everyone around him for years
without them having any idea
of what was going on.
There are around 72 different men.
But they can't identify all of them.
Who are these men?
The majority of the accused,
they still deny responsibility.
He didn't tell me
that he was going to drug his wife.
I don't know about the others,
but for me, I'm not a monster.
The rest of the courtroom
fell completely silent,
as Gisle Pelicot said she wanted
to address her ex-husband directly.
I've covered
many court cases of rape.
Normally, there's one accused,
there is one victim,
there's almost no one in the court.
The courtroom is packed.
There's so much
that's so unusual about this trial.
You have journalists and then lawyers
and lots of accused
who's all around you.
I've never seen
before in a courtroom
where you had the accused
sitting all around you.
Most particularly something
that's this sensitive.
In September 2024, a trial began
that would shock the world.
At the center of it
was 72-year-old Gisle Pelicot.
Her husband Dominique admitted
drugging and raping her
for almost a decade.
Alongside him stood 50 other men,
all accused of raping
or sexually assaulting
an unconscious Gisle,
whilst Dominique filmed them.
All have been found guilty.
Some of them have admitted to rape
and pleaded guilty.
Others have said
that they were duped,
that they were manipulated
by Dominique Pelicot
into believing this was a sex game.
Some of them have said,
"I didn't intend to rape that woman."
"I am not a rapist."
Despite the video evidence
against them,
the level of denial has been aided
by the French law around rape,
which has no mention
of the word " consent".
Many of them have hung their defense
that they never intended
to rape her.
They went there for a threesome
and time and time again,
the main judge has asked
each of these defendants,
"Did you talk to her?
Did you get consent from her?"
And they have all said,
"No, I did not talk to her."
"I never got consent from her."
But the long-lasting effect of this
will be conversations in France
and across the world really saying,
how did we get here?
Is the misogyny so ingrained
in French culture?
The world has watched on
and in a matter of weeks,
Gisle Pelicot has become
an iconic figure.
Her stand has highlighted
issues of shame,
consent and sexual violence.
They tell me I am brave.
I say it's not bravery.
It's will and determination
to change society.
Seeing the images from courtroom
and outside, you must remember
that every day,
Gisle is walking past the men
who are accused of raping her.
They have their hoods up,
they wear masks, balaclavas,
they cover their faces
in order to hide their identities.
And then you have this woman
striding past them.
Entering the court to applause
from the public gallery.
And every day, she has to find
the strength to face them.
People across the world have shown
their support for Gisle Pelicot.
From messages scrawled on walls
near the courthouse,
to mass protests of thousands
across numerous cities.
This is a story about domestic abuse
writ large with rape
and then you have strangers involved.
So, I think the horror of that,
the relatability of Gisle Pelicot,
and her brave and very rare decision
to make the court case public.
And because she did that,
that is why this is a global story.
This story that has become global
has shaken Mazan terribly.
Situated 21 miles
northeast of Avignon,
it's a small, medieval village
with a population of just over 6000.
It was here the Pelicots lived,
and it was here
that Gisle suffered years of abuse.
It is a peaceful town
which has been destroyed by this case
because people now equate Mazan
with the rape cases.
People have had enough of hearing
about the case.
They don't understand why people
associate the name of their town
with this rape case.
Locals have seen the story labelled
on French news as the Affair Mazan.
The name of their home has become
inextricably linked to the trial
and splashed across the headlines.
Well, this story, my God.
It falls on us a bit like a meteor,
like a meteorite,
because you could never have imagined
something like this.
One local is Marion,
who runs a center
for victims of sexual violence.
All at once, this quiet village
is seen by the whole world.
Media from all over the world
come to pick them apart
and we are not prepared for this.
There's frustration that the village
has been tarnished
with only three defendants,
including Dominique
being from Mazan.
Most of the suspects lived
within a 40-mile radius.
But there is also tension
and suspicion.
While the police have identified 50
of the men filmed by Dominique,
another 22 suspects remain at large.
And what's more, it's a village
that it is traditional, patriarchal.
So a case like this, involving abuse,
rape and sexuality,
is taboo, nobody talks about this.
Regardless of where these crimes
took place,
so many are wondering
how they could have happened.
It's scary that all this came out
effectively by chance.
This all starts to unravel
for Dominique Pelicot
when he's caught by a security guard
upskirting a woman
in a supermarket in Carpentras.
He was filming under your dress
with his phone!
The video that Dominique took
of him upskirting this woman emerges.
And what we see is his face
wearing a Covid mask
and his camera
subtly slip towards her skirt.
He's then confronted
by a security guard.
He was filming under your dress
with his phone!
- No.
- Yes! You file a complaint?
- He was filming under your dress!
- That's four people.
It's true. We follow him
on the camera, that's four times!
Come on, to the Police now!
When he's caught,
it's the careless mistake of someone
who has been meticulous
in keeping secret his perversion.
He's had this irrepressible desire
to upskirt this woman.
We should have found them.
There are three others.
You're a really disgusting person.
Yeah, really disgusting.
That's why this case
is so terrifying,
is that we know
there are so many instances
of sort of "minor" sexual crimes
like upskirting
that aren't investigated properly.
And it was only
because the police took this action
that they found out
what was going on.
When speaking to police,
Dominique claimed
he had been overcome by urges
as his wife had been away from home
for a month.
He said this is out of character.
Dominique Pelicot sits her down
and starts crying and tell her,
"Gisle, I've done a big mistake."
"I've done something stupid.
"I've been caught taking videos
of women's crotch
under their skirts. Upskirting."
And she pauses a moment,
she thinks about it,
40 plus years together.
She knows she can forgive him,
but she says,
"You must apologize to this woman."
"And if you do that ever again,
I'm out. I'm leaving you."
And he apologizes,
he says, "It'll never happen again."
But little does she know
the scale of abuse
that he's perpetrated
over the last ten years.
In 50 years of life together,
he had never made
any obscene gestures.
I tell him,
"I will forgive you this time,
but there won't be a next time."
He was filming with his phone.
He was filming under your dress!
In September 2020,
Dominique Pelicot
is stopped by a security guard
for upskirting women
in a supermarket.
Inspired by legislation
introduced in the UK,
it's an act that was made illegal
in France in 2018.
The security agent plays
a very important role in this story,
because if he hadn't insisted
on the woman who was being filmed
going to the police station,
she might have never done it.
She might have thought,
"This guy's a weirdo, but whatever."
I'll just go home and forget
about this incident and moving on.
Come on, to the Police!
You stay there. You don't move.
Madam, I am counting on you
to file a complaint.
But a video was leaked of that day
in the French media,
and you can clearly hear
the security agents saying,
"Madame, you need to go
to the police."
"This is the fourth time
he's doing it today."
"You have to press charges."
And she did it and that led
to the police investigation.
Images in the French media show
how cameras caught Dominique
using a bag with a hidden device.
So, he's been arrested for, you know,
what some people would say
is a minor sexual crime.
It's a drop in the ocean compared
to what's been really happening.
Later, police find in the bag
that he had with him a camera,
a camcorder and some condoms.
Dominique Pelicot,
he had two phones in his bag.
The police investigator found
something on one of those phones.
There was only one app on the iPhone,
it was Skype.
And so, he opened Skype,
and he saw all these images,
photos of women lying unconscious
on their beds
and naked men around them.
And he decided to call his superior
and to launch an investigation
into this matter.
All of Dominique's digital devices
from his home were seized.
On a USB stick, police discover
a folder titled "Abuse."
Inside it, they found
meticulously labeled folders
containing more than 20,000 videos
and photos.
They appeared to show different men
having sex with one woman.
At the time, police don't know
what's going on.
They noticed that it's the same woman
in every video,
and then later, they realize
that that is Pelicot's wife.
With so much evidence, the police
faced a long investigation.
Who were these men?
Was any of this consensual?
Could they be watching one woman
being subjected to years of abuse?
They began to dig into the lives
of Dominique and Gisle Pelicot.
They walked a very private life,
quiet life.
Had three children,
raised them in the Paris region,
had seven grandchildren.
Then retired, moved down to the south
of France as a typical family.
Nothing all that interesting
or notable about them.
I think that makes it
super relatable.
For all intents and purposes,
they had a happy retirement.
She said they had quite a happy
and fulfilling marriage.
He made a lot of meals,
I saw that as him being attentive.
One night, he came to collect me
at Avenal Station
after ten days
with my grandchildren.
He had already prepared the meal.
Two plates were already in the oven.
I put olive oil on my potatoes,
and he put butter,
so it was easy to see
which plate was his.
We would have a glass
of white wine together.
Often, when there was
a football match on TV,
I'd let him watch it alone.
He brought me my ice cream to bed,
my favorite flavor, raspberry.
I told him, "How lucky I am."
"You're a love,
you really take care of me."
Despite their
seemingly idyllic life,
there were signs
that something might be wrong.
As early as 2013,
when the couple first moved to Mazan,
Gisle was having some health issues,
so she's experiencing memory loss.
She was losing her hair,
losing weight.
I think it was the memory loss,
that really started to flag
to the wider family
that something was going on.
It was this very awkward,
weird sensation
where she felt like she was losing
conception of time
and losing her life.
Her life was kind of escaping her.
So, she went to three neurologists.
She thought maybe she had
Alzheimer's.
Dominique was being
incredibly supportive,
so Gisle was being driven crazy,
wondering what was going on.
But knowing that she had
this supportive husband beside her.
He's telling her that she'll be fine,
that she's got nothing
to worry about.
No one could tell her exactly
what was going on.
No one could think of the unthinkable
and no one could imagine
the unimaginable.
And it was only when Dominique
was caught upskirting women in 2020
that suddenly things started
to slip into place.
It's two months after Dominique
has been arrested
for upskirting in a supermarket.
Gisle has forgiven her husband,
but then, they are summoned
to the police station.
They have a normal morning together
in the house
and then they drive
to the police station.
Gisle thinks that this is linked
to the upskirting incident.
There's this powerful moment
when Gisle sees her husband
being called upstairs
to be questioned.
And she stays downstairs,
and they exchange a look,
having no idea that this is
the last time she'll see her husband.
The officer said,
"I will show you some things
which you will not find pleasant."
He opened a folder,
and he showed me a photograph.
It was hard to recognize myself
dressed up like that.
Then he showed me
a second photo and a third.
I asked him to stop.
It was unbearable.
I was inert, in my bed
and a man was raping me.
My world fell apart.
You can't stop yourself thinking,
what would it be like
to be Gisle in that moment?
The idea that you could be looking
at somebody who is beside you
when you're in a moment
of weakness and illness
and you feel so grateful to them,
and find out later
that they've been betraying you
in one of the most awful ways
imaginable, it's really sinister.
It's also the night
where she tells her children.
She calls her daughter first
and she tells her,
"I've got something horrible
to tell you."
And she tells her that her father
had been raping her for many years
and inviting unknown men to have sex
with her while she was unconscious.
And it's just an earthquake,
a shock wave in the family.
We have arrived in the town of Mazan.
Mazan is a fairly peaceful town,
it's very quiet.
Where there is not much to do.
It's a small Provenal town
where life is good.
We are approaching the place
where he made them park their cars.
Close to the stadium
which is right here.
This is where he told them to park,
the men who he met on the internet.
Dominique Pelicot came on foot
to meet them in person.
Sometimes he arrived
in his underwear,
with a dressing gown on top,
and then they'd walk
towards the house.
They had to walk about 100 meters
to reach the cul-de-sac
where the couple's house was located.
This is it, it's here.
This is where it all happened
from 2013 to 2020.
In a very peaceful, remote place,
in a nice house.
And it's here that this horror scene
happened for many years.
Gisle has been confronted
with videos showing her husband
and other men having sex with her
while she is sleeping.
Investigators have to piece together
how this could have happened.
The police establish from the videos
that this has been going on
for about ten years.
In 2011, the Pelicots
have been married for 40 years
and are living in Paris.
They are grandparents,
living a happy, peaceful life.
Dominique had started doing
the cooking at home
some years earlier.
So he took perverse pleasure
in telling her,
"My darling, I'll make dinner,
you can relax," etc.
Under the pretense
of caring for his wife,
Dominique started to drug her.
Pelicot was using
a drug called Temesta...
...an anti-anxiety medication.
Temesta, otherwise known
as Lorazepam,
is used to treat anxiety
and sleeping problems.
Dominique was using drugs
he was prescribed by his doctor.
He would crush the drug,
usually three pills,
and he would mix it in the food.
He often cooked with a lot of garlic,
a lot of onion, spices.
Full of taste and fragrances to hide
the taste and the color of the drug.
If he couldn't get it into her food,
he would bring her ice cream.
High dosages of Temesta can cause
someone to lose consciousness.
He brought me my ice cream to bed.
My favorite flavor, raspberry.
I told him, "How lucky I am."
"You're a love,
you really take care of me."
I never felt my heart race,
I didn't feel anything.
I must have gone under very quickly.
The drugs made Gisle fall
into a deep comatose-like sleep.
If you gave her the Temesta
too early, she would wake up early,
so you had to time everything.
There are a couple of occasions
documented on video
which show Gisle waking up
and she still had no memory of this.
Pelicot was working out
how to keep her unconscious.
The next day,
I was more tired than usual,
but I was working a lot
and thought it was that.
After drugging Gisle,
Dominique raped her.
This abuse continued for two years.
In 2013, the couple moved to Mazan.
There, Dominique escalated
his crimes.
He began inviting strangers
to take part.
Pelicot gave the men
quite extensive instructions.
He would tell them to park their car
at a nearby sports center.
So as not to arouse suspicion
of the neighbors.
He'd tell them they weren't allowed
to wear aftershave.
They shouldn't smoke
before they came over to his home.
Dominque was precise and meticulous
in his planning.
When they arrived,
there was a very specific procedure.
They had to wash their hands
and undress in the kitchen,
and especially not make any noise.
He even asked them
to warm their hands on the radiator
because cold hands
could wake Gisle up.
Pelicot was doing everything he could
to make sure that she didn't awake
or have any suspicions
about what happened that night.
I think he really enjoyed
giving those men that protocol.
It's, "I'm in control of this person.
I own this person."
"If you want access to her,
this is what you need to do,
because I'm the gatekeeper."
It's quiet, they're whispering
to not wake her up.
This is someone who is, literally,
in the deepest sleep.
She's like a corpse.
You know, it's a body.
Her jaw is kind of dropping
on the side, and she's snoring.
They do all these horrible things
to her and she's not moving.
She's obviously passed out
and she's not responding.
Often, she's naked,
or with her clothes pulled up
and her panties pulled down.
The men come up behind her often,
they're often masturbating
to get excited. And you see men...
sticking their penises
inside her vagina, her bum,
her mouth
without ever talking to her.
These are scenes of barbarity.
They regarded me like a ragdoll,
like a garbage bag.
I am lying motionless on the bed,
being raped.
The fetish really comes through.
It's something called Somnophilia
and that is the fetish or the desire
to have sex with someone
who is unmoving and unconscious.
Sometimes it's disturbingly called
the "sleeping beauty" fetish.
This is a criminal act.
He has not requested consent
from his wife
to engage in this activity.
Police are only able to discover
the extent of the crimes
because Dominique had been filming.
Dominique Pelicot
was influenced by pornography.
He was thinking himself
as a movie director.
He videos the sex scenes
or the rape scenes.
There's videos that are on a tripod,
but also often the videos
come in close.
You can hear her ex-husband
directing them.
He'll say like "Softly" or he'll use
some vulgar terms about her,
like "Stick it in the whore,"
or, you know, "She deserves this."
There were hundreds of files,
photos and videos of the abuse.
He meticulously organized them
and archived them.
He was making video montages
of every rape that was committed
and he categorized them by sex scene,
the duration, the date.
He classified
all the video the same way
that you can find them
on pornography websites.
This is someone who loves
what they are doing,
but the planning, the organizing,
the rich fantasy world that someone
like Dominique would live in
is a big part of who he was.
He would've been thinking about this
all of the time.
Over the years,
Dominique started to look elsewhere.
Turning his attention
to his own daughter, Caroline.
Among these thousands of photos,
there were a number of her
in her father's catalog.
A number of them had been erased,
but were reconstituted
by digital experts at the police.
Dominique shared a different picture
of her and her mother online
with degrading comments about them.
There was also a photo montage of her
and her mother
coming out of the bathroom together
that was titled,
"My Slut and Her Daughter."
Photos of the Pelicot's
daughters in law were also found.
They found photos of them,
not sleeping, but fully conscious,
taken with hidden cameras
in the bathroom
when they were getting out
of the bath, naked.
So there is Gisle,
and all the horror she has suffered,
but there is also the daughter
and the daughters-in-law.
He was that opportunist.
He was the constant voyeur.
Dominique had kept this secret life
hidden for almost a decade.
The psychiatrist evaluation
didn't reveal any mental illnesses
or serious mental disorders.
But he has two identities.
He needed to be able to show up
and act like a loving husband,
like a loving father,
so that he could serve
his greater purpose.
He was able to manipulate everyone
around him,
his children, their friends,
his wife for years
without them having any idea
of what was going on.
For 50 years, I lived with a man
who I never would have imagined
could be capable of this.
For me,
it was someone I trusted entirely.
The deception continued
as Gisle's health deteriorated.
The signs were there,
but I never knew how to decode them.
He's seeing her getting worried
about her health.
She's losing weight.
He goes with her to see the doctors.
But he says nothing
about what happens.
It's so sinister, like a nightmare.
The things she took as a sign of love
during a time of weakness in her life
was actually how he was able
to perpetrate these crimes.
Dominique had masterminded
a campaign of abuse
and spun a web of lies.
But he hadn't acted alone.
Now, my connection
to this case boils down
to about 20 minutes
when I was in the Pelicots' home
20 minutes.
The police investigation
into the videos
reveals the scale of the abuse
against Gisle.
They count nearly 200 instances
of alleged rape
carried out by Dominique Pelicot
and 72 others.
They are able to identify
50 of the men.
It troubles me,
the fact that I can't explain
how I got into this situation.
I had this encounter with Pelicot
which was an explosion in my life.
It's a complete cross-section
of society.
The ages range from 26 to 74.
There is a firefighter,
a freelance journalist,
and some retirees too.
A soldier, a nurse,
a prison guard, a baker.
You have men who are unemployed,
and they have been described
by a Pelicot's lawyer
as an example of "Mr. Average."
Three of the defendants
are from Mazan itself,
including a neighbor
of the Pelicots.
One of them Gisle recognized
at the police station.
I saw him now and then
in the bakery, I would say hello.
He had once visited their home,
pretending that he was going
to see Dominique about his bike.
He enjoyed cycling,
he had many cyclist friends.
He came out to the Pelicot's house
to see Gisle in the flesh
before coming back
to allegedly sexually abuse her.
I never thought
he'd come and rape me.
The neighbor denies the allegation.
On other occasions, he had told men
who were eager to see her
before coming to the house
to meet them at the supermarket,
or he'd send photos or videos of her,
so they could see
what she looked like.
The profile of a rapist
is not someone
who you meet in a car park
late at night.
The rapist can also be in the family
or among friends.
The men traveled to Mazan
from up to 40 miles away.
Dominique had found
a method of recruitment.
Once the police
start asking question,
they discover Pelicot was inviting
men to his house via this website.
Dominique had signed up
to a French chatroom called Coco.
It was sort of advertised
as a dating site of sorts
where male users
had their accounts hosted in blue,
women in pink,
but couples were also in pink.
From the outside,
it seemed innocuous,
but inside, it was very different.
Behind its childlike interface,
the chatroom had a dark reputation.
The famous website linked
with a lot of criminal activities.
A sort of free forum gathering pimps,
pedo-criminals, sex buyers.
Just being able to display
sexual content about women,
being able to chat about women
in the most sexist
dehumanizing language too.
Coco allowed users
to hide their real identity.
Dominique used a pseudonym
and he found a chatroom
called "Without Her Knowledge."
This is a discussion forum
about image based sexual abuse.
That is where he invited men
to join him and chat.
His nickname was "a couple seeking
a man for a woman."
He posted pictures of his wife
in underwear on this site,
and said, "Me and my wife
are interested in threesomes."
"Would you like to be involved?"
The conversation would continue
in private,
sometimes by text or on Skype.
He would ask the men for photos
of their face and genitals.
In exchange, he sent photos
of his wife.
The police say that Dominique's
messages were clear.
He invited men to rape Gisle
whilst she was unconscious.
We know that from one of the adverts,
he actually wrote,
"I'm looking for someone
to abuse my wife asleep."
"You're like me, you like rape mode?"
One of the defendants speaks
on camera for the first time.
He says that he was tricked.
He invited me to his house.
Through a ploy,
he had devised on the Coco chat site.
If he finds a pervert,
he'll tell them I'm drugging my wife,
because he knows they will accept,
but when he is faced
with someone normal,
he will use a trick.
In my case, it was a trick.
We had spoken one night before
and I didn't go round
because I found the man
to be very focused on sex.
I wanted to talk about friendship,
get to know each other, etc.
The next day, he did not give up.
He started talking
about a friendly relationship.
And so, I trust him that he is
a spokesman for his wife
and when he tells me
that his wife consents, I trust him.
I never, even for a single second
gave my consent
to Mr. Pelicot or those other men.
They committed rape.
Not for a moment did these men say
to themselves,
"Is there something wrong?"
I think Dominique really enjoyed
this sinister recruitment process,
finding those right people
and using an online space
as a very clever filtering process
to find those partners in crime.
The question that has stuck with me
during this trial
is how many men did Pelicot approach
who said no, but didn't report it?
Being online, it somehow removes
any form of accountability.
It can desensitize people as well
from the harms that they are causing.
Dominque looked for men to help him
take his crimes a step further.
The only man who is not charged
with rape in this case is Marechal.
He's also known sometimes
as Dominique Pelicot's disciple.
Jean-Pierre Marechal
and Dominique met on Coco.
Marechal, a retired lorry driver
had learned from Pelicot
how to drug his own wife
and invited Dominique
over to his home to rape her
and used the same sedation technique
that Pelicot had been using
on Gisle.
Dominique went to Marechal's house,
and together, they raped his wife
while she was unconscious.
At court, both men admit
the drugging
and raping of Jean-Pierre's wife
over a five-year period.
I think he enjoyed this idea
of teacher, student.
I think that Dominique was trying
was to find other like minds
who would engage
in the same activity.
The ten years of abuse
came to an end
when Dominque was arrested
in 2020.
Four years later,
one of the most shocking trials
in French history begins.
It's a very tense atmosphere.
Dominique Pelicot is taking
this position, like, "I am guilty."
"I have admitted to everything."
"They all knew and I'm a rapist
and they are rapists too."
If the accused denies raping
or denies penetration,
then the court decides
to show the videos.
Four years after Gisle's world
is turned upside down,
the rape trial of Dominique Pelicot
and 50 other men begins in Avignon.
Arriving at court
to applause each day.
Gisle is greeted by members
of the public and the world's media.
This case has received
so much attention
because Gisle
waived her right to anonymity.
And in doing so, this has allowed
the world's media
to be able to be there in the courts
and publicize the trial to the world.
Usually, trials that concern sexist
and sexual violence in France,
they are behind closed doors.
When you open the door
to this kind of trial,
you know that your life
will be exposed and scrutinized,
so that's a very brave thing to do.
I wanted all women
who are victims of rape
to be able to say "Mrs. Pelicot
did it. We can do it too."
When you are raped, there is shame
and it's not for us to have shame.
It is for them.
Journalists from all over the world
come to this trial every day
from England, Spain, even Brazil,
the United States, Australia, Japan.
It feels like this trial speaks
to the whole world.
The attention that Gisle
has received during this trial
is like nothing
she's ever experienced in her life.
She is a grandmother
and a former logistics manager,
and suddenly, she has come
to represent for any woman
who has ever been sexually assaulted.
This paragon of bravery.
At court, Gisle Pelicot walks past
just some of the 50 men,
accused of raping her
while she lied unconscious.
There's the pressure
of all the individuals behind me
and I can sense they are trying
to trip me up with their questions.
Thirty-five of the 50 men
deny raping Gisle.
One of the challenges in this case
is that consent is not included
within the legal definition
of French rape law.
There is a duty to prove
that the accused had the intention
to actually commit rape.
Some of them have said, "It was not
my intent to rape a woman."
"I'm not a rapist".
A couple of them said
they first thought she was dead,
but they managed to reconcile that
in their head
and go ahead with their plan.
Others feel like
they're the victim here.
This defendant denies
the allegation of rape.
I did not go
with the intention of rape.
I'm not a rapist.
I'm the child of a battered woman.
As soon as I saw Pelicot
at his house,
this man was scary.
It awakened a traumatic memory
from my childhood
that terrorized me to the point
that I lost all judgment
and I followed his directions
and orders.
When I arrived,
the woman was already asleep.
And I ask for permission.
I start to touch her and she moves.
So in my mind, I tell myself
that she's pretending.
And then he asks me to do this,
to do that.
He tells me to insert my finger
into her vagina.
I didn't even have control
of my fingers.
Madame Pelicot, in our scenario
was the victim of a rape.
As for me, I was a victim of terror.
We are two victims.
There is one predator
and two victims.
Many will tell the courts
that something was off,
I wanted to leave, I wasn't thinking,
but no one called the police.
This defendant claims
that Gisle must have noticed
signs of the abuse.
I find it hard
to hear Madame Pelicot say
that she thought
she lived with a perfect man.
She noticed things, but turned
the other way because of love.
It's a message to women.
Even if you are in love,
don't forgive anything.
Victim blaming happens often
in cases of sexual abuse.
The victim is always questioned
and somehow,
they're the ones to blame.
Lawyers of the defense asked her
whether she's into threesomes
or whether she's into swinging.
No matter how many photos
and videos she has as evidence,
they're still trying
to blame her for it.
The comments that we heard
in the defense,
arguments were archaic
and shows also the height of misogyny
and the utmost contempt for women.
Some defendants
used arguments saying,
"Dominique Pelicot,
the husband gave his consent,"
as if the wife was the property
of her husband.
Many saw the defense arguments
as misogynistic,
but this defendant
takes an opposing view.
I am a very feminist person.
I'm more sensitive to the cause
of women than many feminists
who call themselves feminists.
Dominique has admitted everything
since the beginning.
He also says that all the accused
present in the room knew everything.
They knew she would be drugged
and they knew why they were there.
I can't recall another trial
anywhere else in the world
where a rape case
that has so much evidence
and in that weird way, you know,
Gisle Pelicot has the perfect trial
because unlike so many other women,
she has proof of what has happened.
After Gisle's insistence,
the judge rules
that the videos be shared in court.
When the first videos
were shown in the courtroom,
there was a feeling of unease
in the room
because it wasn't easy to watch
with the victim next to you.
I preferred not to watch them all
because some of them
were beyond comprehension.
When you sit in that courtroom
and you see one video after another
of a woman snoring deeply,
loudly echoing in the courtroom.
She was not a human being
in that moment,
and I think that's really shaken
a lot of people
as to how men see women.
There have been some powerful moments
during this trial.
I'm thinking of when Gisle Pelicot
spoke for the first time.
The rest of the courtroom
fell completely silent
as Gisle Pelicot said, she wanted
to address her ex-husband directly.
So many times, I said to myself,
"How lucky I am
to have you at my side."
How could you have betrayed me
to this point?
How could you have brought
these strangers into my bedroom?
I am a woman
who is totally destroyed.
I don't know if my whole life
will be enough to understand.
Their daughter, Caroline, feels
like she's the forgotten person here.
The police found two photos of her
in her underwear lying on a bed
that she doesn't recognize.
So, she's convinced
that she was also drugged and abused.
Dominique tells the court
he took the photos of his daughter
because he was being blackmailed,
but offers no further explanation.
He denies ever drugging
or touching her,
but Caroline is convinced
he is lying.
She gets red. She's frustrated.
She screams at him, you know,
"You're a liar. You'll die alone."
She was hoping, I think,
for some closure in this trial.
But there's lots with her
that's unresolved.
During investigations
police discover
that Dominique's criminal activity
dates back much further.
What's emerged is that Dominique
is potentially connected
to at least two other crimes
from the '90s.
In 1999, an attempted rape
of an estate agent in Paris.
It was a DNA match, so he admitted
he was involved in this crime.
In Sophie's case, we have no proof
that it was Dominique Pelicot.
But in these two cases,
there are elements of the MO
that are totally identical.
Two women who work as estate agents
who are young, around 20 years old,
who are showing an apartment,
who are attacked with a knife,
who are assaulted, who are sedated
with ether to make them fall asleep.
These cases may seem connected,
but have no link
from a legal perspective.
Investigations are continuing
on these two cases and others.
Police suspect
Dominique may be linked
to at least five unsolved crimes.
Gisle Pelicot is making history.
She is leaving a legacy
for all of us women.
Today, she is truly a symbol
of the fight against sexual violence.
Locally, but also in France,
Europe and all over the world.
This trial has had a huge impact
in the French society.
Many protests have been taking place
in solidarity with Gisle Pelicot.
I would like to thank all the people
who have supported me
since the beginning of this ordeal.
I was touched by this momentum,
which gives me a responsibility.
All of you give me the strength
to fight this fight to the end.
This trial is a reckoning for France
and the law around consent,
but it's also allowing women to say,
"We're here to be believed."
"Even if it's harassment
on the street,
it's being inappropriately
touched in a club."
"We're saying this is happening."
And Gisle is standing up and saying,
"Listen to us
when we say what's happening."
They're asking for 140 new measures
from the government
to fight against violence
against women.
They're asking
that all victims are believed.
Because they're referring directly
to the Gisle Pelicot case.
Ninety-four percent of rape cases
are dropped before they go to trial
so it means
that there are many women in France
that have received no justice
for what happened to her.
We're hoping that this could be
a game changer in the fight
against rape culture
and sexual violence in France.
For the local people of Mazan,
this case has been
particularly poignant.
I hope there will be
a before and after this case.
I can see it with the women
that we work with,
it's really given them courage.
Gisle is a formidable woman,
very, very strong and brave.
She's shown us
that we shouldn't feel ashamed
and that we too can reject
this shame, this guilt we feel.
Latika and Marion decide to organize
a march in Mazan
in support of Gisle.
Gisle was so touched by this
that she came to visit
the association the next day.
Meeting Gisle gave me the courage
to reopen my case, to fight
and to tell myself that being
a victim doesn't mean you are weak.
We can hold our heads high.
We can accuse without feeling shame,
that's important.
And that's what she's shown.
Many women are hoping that this case
will lead to law changes in France.
So, it isn't the case that lawyers
need to prove intent to rape a woman
and actually it becomes a form of,
you need to assort positive consent.
In December 2024,
after a historic trial,
all the men charged with the rape
of Gisle Pelicot were found guilty.
The men have been awarded
varying sentences.
Dominique received the maximum
under French law, 20 years.
I don't think we'll ever forget
the name Gisle Pelicot.
She has become
this iconic figure of strength
and somebody
who has challenged rape myths
that are still held in 2024.
This case has the merit of showing
that rapists
are everywhere in our society
and it shies away from what was
a common widespread idea
that a rapist was some monster
that was alienated from society.
By making this trial public.
Gisle said that she wants shame
to change sides.
But she's also doing this,
so that society changes,
that attitudes change,
so that the law changes too,
so that rape is seen differently,
so that people can speak freely
and victims of sexual violence
can identify with her.
And for this to serve as a lesson
to everyone, in France,
but also across the world.
I think of the unrecognized victims
whose stories remain in the shadows.
I want you to know
that we share the same fight.
I would like to express
my deepest gratitude
to all the people who supported me
throughout this ordeal.
Iyuno
how lucky I am
to have you at my side.
A kind and considerate man
who I trusted entirely.
How can the perfect man
have got to this?
How could you have betrayed me
like this?
How could you have brought
these strangers into my bedroom?
We're going to take you to France.
This is a really distressing story.
A 71-year-old has admitted drugging
and raping his wife
over a period of ten years.
He also invited other men
to do the same.
This case has captured
the imagination of the world.
It's unlike anything
we've ever seen before.
Many questioning now,
how such dreadful sexual violence
could take place on such a big scale.
He was able to manipulate
everyone around him for years
without them having any idea
of what was going on.
There are around 72 different men.
But they can't identify all of them.
Who are these men?
The majority of the accused,
they still deny responsibility.
He didn't tell me
that he was going to drug his wife.
I don't know about the others,
but for me, I'm not a monster.
The rest of the courtroom
fell completely silent,
as Gisle Pelicot said she wanted
to address her ex-husband directly.
I've covered
many court cases of rape.
Normally, there's one accused,
there is one victim,
there's almost no one in the court.
The courtroom is packed.
There's so much
that's so unusual about this trial.
You have journalists and then lawyers
and lots of accused
who's all around you.
I've never seen
before in a courtroom
where you had the accused
sitting all around you.
Most particularly something
that's this sensitive.
In September 2024, a trial began
that would shock the world.
At the center of it
was 72-year-old Gisle Pelicot.
Her husband Dominique admitted
drugging and raping her
for almost a decade.
Alongside him stood 50 other men,
all accused of raping
or sexually assaulting
an unconscious Gisle,
whilst Dominique filmed them.
All have been found guilty.
Some of them have admitted to rape
and pleaded guilty.
Others have said
that they were duped,
that they were manipulated
by Dominique Pelicot
into believing this was a sex game.
Some of them have said,
"I didn't intend to rape that woman."
"I am not a rapist."
Despite the video evidence
against them,
the level of denial has been aided
by the French law around rape,
which has no mention
of the word " consent".
Many of them have hung their defense
that they never intended
to rape her.
They went there for a threesome
and time and time again,
the main judge has asked
each of these defendants,
"Did you talk to her?
Did you get consent from her?"
And they have all said,
"No, I did not talk to her."
"I never got consent from her."
But the long-lasting effect of this
will be conversations in France
and across the world really saying,
how did we get here?
Is the misogyny so ingrained
in French culture?
The world has watched on
and in a matter of weeks,
Gisle Pelicot has become
an iconic figure.
Her stand has highlighted
issues of shame,
consent and sexual violence.
They tell me I am brave.
I say it's not bravery.
It's will and determination
to change society.
Seeing the images from courtroom
and outside, you must remember
that every day,
Gisle is walking past the men
who are accused of raping her.
They have their hoods up,
they wear masks, balaclavas,
they cover their faces
in order to hide their identities.
And then you have this woman
striding past them.
Entering the court to applause
from the public gallery.
And every day, she has to find
the strength to face them.
People across the world have shown
their support for Gisle Pelicot.
From messages scrawled on walls
near the courthouse,
to mass protests of thousands
across numerous cities.
This is a story about domestic abuse
writ large with rape
and then you have strangers involved.
So, I think the horror of that,
the relatability of Gisle Pelicot,
and her brave and very rare decision
to make the court case public.
And because she did that,
that is why this is a global story.
This story that has become global
has shaken Mazan terribly.
Situated 21 miles
northeast of Avignon,
it's a small, medieval village
with a population of just over 6000.
It was here the Pelicots lived,
and it was here
that Gisle suffered years of abuse.
It is a peaceful town
which has been destroyed by this case
because people now equate Mazan
with the rape cases.
People have had enough of hearing
about the case.
They don't understand why people
associate the name of their town
with this rape case.
Locals have seen the story labelled
on French news as the Affair Mazan.
The name of their home has become
inextricably linked to the trial
and splashed across the headlines.
Well, this story, my God.
It falls on us a bit like a meteor,
like a meteorite,
because you could never have imagined
something like this.
One local is Marion,
who runs a center
for victims of sexual violence.
All at once, this quiet village
is seen by the whole world.
Media from all over the world
come to pick them apart
and we are not prepared for this.
There's frustration that the village
has been tarnished
with only three defendants,
including Dominique
being from Mazan.
Most of the suspects lived
within a 40-mile radius.
But there is also tension
and suspicion.
While the police have identified 50
of the men filmed by Dominique,
another 22 suspects remain at large.
And what's more, it's a village
that it is traditional, patriarchal.
So a case like this, involving abuse,
rape and sexuality,
is taboo, nobody talks about this.
Regardless of where these crimes
took place,
so many are wondering
how they could have happened.
It's scary that all this came out
effectively by chance.
This all starts to unravel
for Dominique Pelicot
when he's caught by a security guard
upskirting a woman
in a supermarket in Carpentras.
He was filming under your dress
with his phone!
The video that Dominique took
of him upskirting this woman emerges.
And what we see is his face
wearing a Covid mask
and his camera
subtly slip towards her skirt.
He's then confronted
by a security guard.
He was filming under your dress
with his phone!
- No.
- Yes! You file a complaint?
- He was filming under your dress!
- That's four people.
It's true. We follow him
on the camera, that's four times!
Come on, to the Police now!
When he's caught,
it's the careless mistake of someone
who has been meticulous
in keeping secret his perversion.
He's had this irrepressible desire
to upskirt this woman.
We should have found them.
There are three others.
You're a really disgusting person.
Yeah, really disgusting.
That's why this case
is so terrifying,
is that we know
there are so many instances
of sort of "minor" sexual crimes
like upskirting
that aren't investigated properly.
And it was only
because the police took this action
that they found out
what was going on.
When speaking to police,
Dominique claimed
he had been overcome by urges
as his wife had been away from home
for a month.
He said this is out of character.
Dominique Pelicot sits her down
and starts crying and tell her,
"Gisle, I've done a big mistake."
"I've done something stupid.
"I've been caught taking videos
of women's crotch
under their skirts. Upskirting."
And she pauses a moment,
she thinks about it,
40 plus years together.
She knows she can forgive him,
but she says,
"You must apologize to this woman."
"And if you do that ever again,
I'm out. I'm leaving you."
And he apologizes,
he says, "It'll never happen again."
But little does she know
the scale of abuse
that he's perpetrated
over the last ten years.
In 50 years of life together,
he had never made
any obscene gestures.
I tell him,
"I will forgive you this time,
but there won't be a next time."
He was filming with his phone.
He was filming under your dress!
In September 2020,
Dominique Pelicot
is stopped by a security guard
for upskirting women
in a supermarket.
Inspired by legislation
introduced in the UK,
it's an act that was made illegal
in France in 2018.
The security agent plays
a very important role in this story,
because if he hadn't insisted
on the woman who was being filmed
going to the police station,
she might have never done it.
She might have thought,
"This guy's a weirdo, but whatever."
I'll just go home and forget
about this incident and moving on.
Come on, to the Police!
You stay there. You don't move.
Madam, I am counting on you
to file a complaint.
But a video was leaked of that day
in the French media,
and you can clearly hear
the security agents saying,
"Madame, you need to go
to the police."
"This is the fourth time
he's doing it today."
"You have to press charges."
And she did it and that led
to the police investigation.
Images in the French media show
how cameras caught Dominique
using a bag with a hidden device.
So, he's been arrested for, you know,
what some people would say
is a minor sexual crime.
It's a drop in the ocean compared
to what's been really happening.
Later, police find in the bag
that he had with him a camera,
a camcorder and some condoms.
Dominique Pelicot,
he had two phones in his bag.
The police investigator found
something on one of those phones.
There was only one app on the iPhone,
it was Skype.
And so, he opened Skype,
and he saw all these images,
photos of women lying unconscious
on their beds
and naked men around them.
And he decided to call his superior
and to launch an investigation
into this matter.
All of Dominique's digital devices
from his home were seized.
On a USB stick, police discover
a folder titled "Abuse."
Inside it, they found
meticulously labeled folders
containing more than 20,000 videos
and photos.
They appeared to show different men
having sex with one woman.
At the time, police don't know
what's going on.
They noticed that it's the same woman
in every video,
and then later, they realize
that that is Pelicot's wife.
With so much evidence, the police
faced a long investigation.
Who were these men?
Was any of this consensual?
Could they be watching one woman
being subjected to years of abuse?
They began to dig into the lives
of Dominique and Gisle Pelicot.
They walked a very private life,
quiet life.
Had three children,
raised them in the Paris region,
had seven grandchildren.
Then retired, moved down to the south
of France as a typical family.
Nothing all that interesting
or notable about them.
I think that makes it
super relatable.
For all intents and purposes,
they had a happy retirement.
She said they had quite a happy
and fulfilling marriage.
He made a lot of meals,
I saw that as him being attentive.
One night, he came to collect me
at Avenal Station
after ten days
with my grandchildren.
He had already prepared the meal.
Two plates were already in the oven.
I put olive oil on my potatoes,
and he put butter,
so it was easy to see
which plate was his.
We would have a glass
of white wine together.
Often, when there was
a football match on TV,
I'd let him watch it alone.
He brought me my ice cream to bed,
my favorite flavor, raspberry.
I told him, "How lucky I am."
"You're a love,
you really take care of me."
Despite their
seemingly idyllic life,
there were signs
that something might be wrong.
As early as 2013,
when the couple first moved to Mazan,
Gisle was having some health issues,
so she's experiencing memory loss.
She was losing her hair,
losing weight.
I think it was the memory loss,
that really started to flag
to the wider family
that something was going on.
It was this very awkward,
weird sensation
where she felt like she was losing
conception of time
and losing her life.
Her life was kind of escaping her.
So, she went to three neurologists.
She thought maybe she had
Alzheimer's.
Dominique was being
incredibly supportive,
so Gisle was being driven crazy,
wondering what was going on.
But knowing that she had
this supportive husband beside her.
He's telling her that she'll be fine,
that she's got nothing
to worry about.
No one could tell her exactly
what was going on.
No one could think of the unthinkable
and no one could imagine
the unimaginable.
And it was only when Dominique
was caught upskirting women in 2020
that suddenly things started
to slip into place.
It's two months after Dominique
has been arrested
for upskirting in a supermarket.
Gisle has forgiven her husband,
but then, they are summoned
to the police station.
They have a normal morning together
in the house
and then they drive
to the police station.
Gisle thinks that this is linked
to the upskirting incident.
There's this powerful moment
when Gisle sees her husband
being called upstairs
to be questioned.
And she stays downstairs,
and they exchange a look,
having no idea that this is
the last time she'll see her husband.
The officer said,
"I will show you some things
which you will not find pleasant."
He opened a folder,
and he showed me a photograph.
It was hard to recognize myself
dressed up like that.
Then he showed me
a second photo and a third.
I asked him to stop.
It was unbearable.
I was inert, in my bed
and a man was raping me.
My world fell apart.
You can't stop yourself thinking,
what would it be like
to be Gisle in that moment?
The idea that you could be looking
at somebody who is beside you
when you're in a moment
of weakness and illness
and you feel so grateful to them,
and find out later
that they've been betraying you
in one of the most awful ways
imaginable, it's really sinister.
It's also the night
where she tells her children.
She calls her daughter first
and she tells her,
"I've got something horrible
to tell you."
And she tells her that her father
had been raping her for many years
and inviting unknown men to have sex
with her while she was unconscious.
And it's just an earthquake,
a shock wave in the family.
We have arrived in the town of Mazan.
Mazan is a fairly peaceful town,
it's very quiet.
Where there is not much to do.
It's a small Provenal town
where life is good.
We are approaching the place
where he made them park their cars.
Close to the stadium
which is right here.
This is where he told them to park,
the men who he met on the internet.
Dominique Pelicot came on foot
to meet them in person.
Sometimes he arrived
in his underwear,
with a dressing gown on top,
and then they'd walk
towards the house.
They had to walk about 100 meters
to reach the cul-de-sac
where the couple's house was located.
This is it, it's here.
This is where it all happened
from 2013 to 2020.
In a very peaceful, remote place,
in a nice house.
And it's here that this horror scene
happened for many years.
Gisle has been confronted
with videos showing her husband
and other men having sex with her
while she is sleeping.
Investigators have to piece together
how this could have happened.
The police establish from the videos
that this has been going on
for about ten years.
In 2011, the Pelicots
have been married for 40 years
and are living in Paris.
They are grandparents,
living a happy, peaceful life.
Dominique had started doing
the cooking at home
some years earlier.
So he took perverse pleasure
in telling her,
"My darling, I'll make dinner,
you can relax," etc.
Under the pretense
of caring for his wife,
Dominique started to drug her.
Pelicot was using
a drug called Temesta...
...an anti-anxiety medication.
Temesta, otherwise known
as Lorazepam,
is used to treat anxiety
and sleeping problems.
Dominique was using drugs
he was prescribed by his doctor.
He would crush the drug,
usually three pills,
and he would mix it in the food.
He often cooked with a lot of garlic,
a lot of onion, spices.
Full of taste and fragrances to hide
the taste and the color of the drug.
If he couldn't get it into her food,
he would bring her ice cream.
High dosages of Temesta can cause
someone to lose consciousness.
He brought me my ice cream to bed.
My favorite flavor, raspberry.
I told him, "How lucky I am."
"You're a love,
you really take care of me."
I never felt my heart race,
I didn't feel anything.
I must have gone under very quickly.
The drugs made Gisle fall
into a deep comatose-like sleep.
If you gave her the Temesta
too early, she would wake up early,
so you had to time everything.
There are a couple of occasions
documented on video
which show Gisle waking up
and she still had no memory of this.
Pelicot was working out
how to keep her unconscious.
The next day,
I was more tired than usual,
but I was working a lot
and thought it was that.
After drugging Gisle,
Dominique raped her.
This abuse continued for two years.
In 2013, the couple moved to Mazan.
There, Dominique escalated
his crimes.
He began inviting strangers
to take part.
Pelicot gave the men
quite extensive instructions.
He would tell them to park their car
at a nearby sports center.
So as not to arouse suspicion
of the neighbors.
He'd tell them they weren't allowed
to wear aftershave.
They shouldn't smoke
before they came over to his home.
Dominque was precise and meticulous
in his planning.
When they arrived,
there was a very specific procedure.
They had to wash their hands
and undress in the kitchen,
and especially not make any noise.
He even asked them
to warm their hands on the radiator
because cold hands
could wake Gisle up.
Pelicot was doing everything he could
to make sure that she didn't awake
or have any suspicions
about what happened that night.
I think he really enjoyed
giving those men that protocol.
It's, "I'm in control of this person.
I own this person."
"If you want access to her,
this is what you need to do,
because I'm the gatekeeper."
It's quiet, they're whispering
to not wake her up.
This is someone who is, literally,
in the deepest sleep.
She's like a corpse.
You know, it's a body.
Her jaw is kind of dropping
on the side, and she's snoring.
They do all these horrible things
to her and she's not moving.
She's obviously passed out
and she's not responding.
Often, she's naked,
or with her clothes pulled up
and her panties pulled down.
The men come up behind her often,
they're often masturbating
to get excited. And you see men...
sticking their penises
inside her vagina, her bum,
her mouth
without ever talking to her.
These are scenes of barbarity.
They regarded me like a ragdoll,
like a garbage bag.
I am lying motionless on the bed,
being raped.
The fetish really comes through.
It's something called Somnophilia
and that is the fetish or the desire
to have sex with someone
who is unmoving and unconscious.
Sometimes it's disturbingly called
the "sleeping beauty" fetish.
This is a criminal act.
He has not requested consent
from his wife
to engage in this activity.
Police are only able to discover
the extent of the crimes
because Dominique had been filming.
Dominique Pelicot
was influenced by pornography.
He was thinking himself
as a movie director.
He videos the sex scenes
or the rape scenes.
There's videos that are on a tripod,
but also often the videos
come in close.
You can hear her ex-husband
directing them.
He'll say like "Softly" or he'll use
some vulgar terms about her,
like "Stick it in the whore,"
or, you know, "She deserves this."
There were hundreds of files,
photos and videos of the abuse.
He meticulously organized them
and archived them.
He was making video montages
of every rape that was committed
and he categorized them by sex scene,
the duration, the date.
He classified
all the video the same way
that you can find them
on pornography websites.
This is someone who loves
what they are doing,
but the planning, the organizing,
the rich fantasy world that someone
like Dominique would live in
is a big part of who he was.
He would've been thinking about this
all of the time.
Over the years,
Dominique started to look elsewhere.
Turning his attention
to his own daughter, Caroline.
Among these thousands of photos,
there were a number of her
in her father's catalog.
A number of them had been erased,
but were reconstituted
by digital experts at the police.
Dominique shared a different picture
of her and her mother online
with degrading comments about them.
There was also a photo montage of her
and her mother
coming out of the bathroom together
that was titled,
"My Slut and Her Daughter."
Photos of the Pelicot's
daughters in law were also found.
They found photos of them,
not sleeping, but fully conscious,
taken with hidden cameras
in the bathroom
when they were getting out
of the bath, naked.
So there is Gisle,
and all the horror she has suffered,
but there is also the daughter
and the daughters-in-law.
He was that opportunist.
He was the constant voyeur.
Dominique had kept this secret life
hidden for almost a decade.
The psychiatrist evaluation
didn't reveal any mental illnesses
or serious mental disorders.
But he has two identities.
He needed to be able to show up
and act like a loving husband,
like a loving father,
so that he could serve
his greater purpose.
He was able to manipulate everyone
around him,
his children, their friends,
his wife for years
without them having any idea
of what was going on.
For 50 years, I lived with a man
who I never would have imagined
could be capable of this.
For me,
it was someone I trusted entirely.
The deception continued
as Gisle's health deteriorated.
The signs were there,
but I never knew how to decode them.
He's seeing her getting worried
about her health.
She's losing weight.
He goes with her to see the doctors.
But he says nothing
about what happens.
It's so sinister, like a nightmare.
The things she took as a sign of love
during a time of weakness in her life
was actually how he was able
to perpetrate these crimes.
Dominique had masterminded
a campaign of abuse
and spun a web of lies.
But he hadn't acted alone.
Now, my connection
to this case boils down
to about 20 minutes
when I was in the Pelicots' home
20 minutes.
The police investigation
into the videos
reveals the scale of the abuse
against Gisle.
They count nearly 200 instances
of alleged rape
carried out by Dominique Pelicot
and 72 others.
They are able to identify
50 of the men.
It troubles me,
the fact that I can't explain
how I got into this situation.
I had this encounter with Pelicot
which was an explosion in my life.
It's a complete cross-section
of society.
The ages range from 26 to 74.
There is a firefighter,
a freelance journalist,
and some retirees too.
A soldier, a nurse,
a prison guard, a baker.
You have men who are unemployed,
and they have been described
by a Pelicot's lawyer
as an example of "Mr. Average."
Three of the defendants
are from Mazan itself,
including a neighbor
of the Pelicots.
One of them Gisle recognized
at the police station.
I saw him now and then
in the bakery, I would say hello.
He had once visited their home,
pretending that he was going
to see Dominique about his bike.
He enjoyed cycling,
he had many cyclist friends.
He came out to the Pelicot's house
to see Gisle in the flesh
before coming back
to allegedly sexually abuse her.
I never thought
he'd come and rape me.
The neighbor denies the allegation.
On other occasions, he had told men
who were eager to see her
before coming to the house
to meet them at the supermarket,
or he'd send photos or videos of her,
so they could see
what she looked like.
The profile of a rapist
is not someone
who you meet in a car park
late at night.
The rapist can also be in the family
or among friends.
The men traveled to Mazan
from up to 40 miles away.
Dominique had found
a method of recruitment.
Once the police
start asking question,
they discover Pelicot was inviting
men to his house via this website.
Dominique had signed up
to a French chatroom called Coco.
It was sort of advertised
as a dating site of sorts
where male users
had their accounts hosted in blue,
women in pink,
but couples were also in pink.
From the outside,
it seemed innocuous,
but inside, it was very different.
Behind its childlike interface,
the chatroom had a dark reputation.
The famous website linked
with a lot of criminal activities.
A sort of free forum gathering pimps,
pedo-criminals, sex buyers.
Just being able to display
sexual content about women,
being able to chat about women
in the most sexist
dehumanizing language too.
Coco allowed users
to hide their real identity.
Dominique used a pseudonym
and he found a chatroom
called "Without Her Knowledge."
This is a discussion forum
about image based sexual abuse.
That is where he invited men
to join him and chat.
His nickname was "a couple seeking
a man for a woman."
He posted pictures of his wife
in underwear on this site,
and said, "Me and my wife
are interested in threesomes."
"Would you like to be involved?"
The conversation would continue
in private,
sometimes by text or on Skype.
He would ask the men for photos
of their face and genitals.
In exchange, he sent photos
of his wife.
The police say that Dominique's
messages were clear.
He invited men to rape Gisle
whilst she was unconscious.
We know that from one of the adverts,
he actually wrote,
"I'm looking for someone
to abuse my wife asleep."
"You're like me, you like rape mode?"
One of the defendants speaks
on camera for the first time.
He says that he was tricked.
He invited me to his house.
Through a ploy,
he had devised on the Coco chat site.
If he finds a pervert,
he'll tell them I'm drugging my wife,
because he knows they will accept,
but when he is faced
with someone normal,
he will use a trick.
In my case, it was a trick.
We had spoken one night before
and I didn't go round
because I found the man
to be very focused on sex.
I wanted to talk about friendship,
get to know each other, etc.
The next day, he did not give up.
He started talking
about a friendly relationship.
And so, I trust him that he is
a spokesman for his wife
and when he tells me
that his wife consents, I trust him.
I never, even for a single second
gave my consent
to Mr. Pelicot or those other men.
They committed rape.
Not for a moment did these men say
to themselves,
"Is there something wrong?"
I think Dominique really enjoyed
this sinister recruitment process,
finding those right people
and using an online space
as a very clever filtering process
to find those partners in crime.
The question that has stuck with me
during this trial
is how many men did Pelicot approach
who said no, but didn't report it?
Being online, it somehow removes
any form of accountability.
It can desensitize people as well
from the harms that they are causing.
Dominque looked for men to help him
take his crimes a step further.
The only man who is not charged
with rape in this case is Marechal.
He's also known sometimes
as Dominique Pelicot's disciple.
Jean-Pierre Marechal
and Dominique met on Coco.
Marechal, a retired lorry driver
had learned from Pelicot
how to drug his own wife
and invited Dominique
over to his home to rape her
and used the same sedation technique
that Pelicot had been using
on Gisle.
Dominique went to Marechal's house,
and together, they raped his wife
while she was unconscious.
At court, both men admit
the drugging
and raping of Jean-Pierre's wife
over a five-year period.
I think he enjoyed this idea
of teacher, student.
I think that Dominique was trying
was to find other like minds
who would engage
in the same activity.
The ten years of abuse
came to an end
when Dominque was arrested
in 2020.
Four years later,
one of the most shocking trials
in French history begins.
It's a very tense atmosphere.
Dominique Pelicot is taking
this position, like, "I am guilty."
"I have admitted to everything."
"They all knew and I'm a rapist
and they are rapists too."
If the accused denies raping
or denies penetration,
then the court decides
to show the videos.
Four years after Gisle's world
is turned upside down,
the rape trial of Dominique Pelicot
and 50 other men begins in Avignon.
Arriving at court
to applause each day.
Gisle is greeted by members
of the public and the world's media.
This case has received
so much attention
because Gisle
waived her right to anonymity.
And in doing so, this has allowed
the world's media
to be able to be there in the courts
and publicize the trial to the world.
Usually, trials that concern sexist
and sexual violence in France,
they are behind closed doors.
When you open the door
to this kind of trial,
you know that your life
will be exposed and scrutinized,
so that's a very brave thing to do.
I wanted all women
who are victims of rape
to be able to say "Mrs. Pelicot
did it. We can do it too."
When you are raped, there is shame
and it's not for us to have shame.
It is for them.
Journalists from all over the world
come to this trial every day
from England, Spain, even Brazil,
the United States, Australia, Japan.
It feels like this trial speaks
to the whole world.
The attention that Gisle
has received during this trial
is like nothing
she's ever experienced in her life.
She is a grandmother
and a former logistics manager,
and suddenly, she has come
to represent for any woman
who has ever been sexually assaulted.
This paragon of bravery.
At court, Gisle Pelicot walks past
just some of the 50 men,
accused of raping her
while she lied unconscious.
There's the pressure
of all the individuals behind me
and I can sense they are trying
to trip me up with their questions.
Thirty-five of the 50 men
deny raping Gisle.
One of the challenges in this case
is that consent is not included
within the legal definition
of French rape law.
There is a duty to prove
that the accused had the intention
to actually commit rape.
Some of them have said, "It was not
my intent to rape a woman."
"I'm not a rapist".
A couple of them said
they first thought she was dead,
but they managed to reconcile that
in their head
and go ahead with their plan.
Others feel like
they're the victim here.
This defendant denies
the allegation of rape.
I did not go
with the intention of rape.
I'm not a rapist.
I'm the child of a battered woman.
As soon as I saw Pelicot
at his house,
this man was scary.
It awakened a traumatic memory
from my childhood
that terrorized me to the point
that I lost all judgment
and I followed his directions
and orders.
When I arrived,
the woman was already asleep.
And I ask for permission.
I start to touch her and she moves.
So in my mind, I tell myself
that she's pretending.
And then he asks me to do this,
to do that.
He tells me to insert my finger
into her vagina.
I didn't even have control
of my fingers.
Madame Pelicot, in our scenario
was the victim of a rape.
As for me, I was a victim of terror.
We are two victims.
There is one predator
and two victims.
Many will tell the courts
that something was off,
I wanted to leave, I wasn't thinking,
but no one called the police.
This defendant claims
that Gisle must have noticed
signs of the abuse.
I find it hard
to hear Madame Pelicot say
that she thought
she lived with a perfect man.
She noticed things, but turned
the other way because of love.
It's a message to women.
Even if you are in love,
don't forgive anything.
Victim blaming happens often
in cases of sexual abuse.
The victim is always questioned
and somehow,
they're the ones to blame.
Lawyers of the defense asked her
whether she's into threesomes
or whether she's into swinging.
No matter how many photos
and videos she has as evidence,
they're still trying
to blame her for it.
The comments that we heard
in the defense,
arguments were archaic
and shows also the height of misogyny
and the utmost contempt for women.
Some defendants
used arguments saying,
"Dominique Pelicot,
the husband gave his consent,"
as if the wife was the property
of her husband.
Many saw the defense arguments
as misogynistic,
but this defendant
takes an opposing view.
I am a very feminist person.
I'm more sensitive to the cause
of women than many feminists
who call themselves feminists.
Dominique has admitted everything
since the beginning.
He also says that all the accused
present in the room knew everything.
They knew she would be drugged
and they knew why they were there.
I can't recall another trial
anywhere else in the world
where a rape case
that has so much evidence
and in that weird way, you know,
Gisle Pelicot has the perfect trial
because unlike so many other women,
she has proof of what has happened.
After Gisle's insistence,
the judge rules
that the videos be shared in court.
When the first videos
were shown in the courtroom,
there was a feeling of unease
in the room
because it wasn't easy to watch
with the victim next to you.
I preferred not to watch them all
because some of them
were beyond comprehension.
When you sit in that courtroom
and you see one video after another
of a woman snoring deeply,
loudly echoing in the courtroom.
She was not a human being
in that moment,
and I think that's really shaken
a lot of people
as to how men see women.
There have been some powerful moments
during this trial.
I'm thinking of when Gisle Pelicot
spoke for the first time.
The rest of the courtroom
fell completely silent
as Gisle Pelicot said, she wanted
to address her ex-husband directly.
So many times, I said to myself,
"How lucky I am
to have you at my side."
How could you have betrayed me
to this point?
How could you have brought
these strangers into my bedroom?
I am a woman
who is totally destroyed.
I don't know if my whole life
will be enough to understand.
Their daughter, Caroline, feels
like she's the forgotten person here.
The police found two photos of her
in her underwear lying on a bed
that she doesn't recognize.
So, she's convinced
that she was also drugged and abused.
Dominique tells the court
he took the photos of his daughter
because he was being blackmailed,
but offers no further explanation.
He denies ever drugging
or touching her,
but Caroline is convinced
he is lying.
She gets red. She's frustrated.
She screams at him, you know,
"You're a liar. You'll die alone."
She was hoping, I think,
for some closure in this trial.
But there's lots with her
that's unresolved.
During investigations
police discover
that Dominique's criminal activity
dates back much further.
What's emerged is that Dominique
is potentially connected
to at least two other crimes
from the '90s.
In 1999, an attempted rape
of an estate agent in Paris.
It was a DNA match, so he admitted
he was involved in this crime.
In Sophie's case, we have no proof
that it was Dominique Pelicot.
But in these two cases,
there are elements of the MO
that are totally identical.
Two women who work as estate agents
who are young, around 20 years old,
who are showing an apartment,
who are attacked with a knife,
who are assaulted, who are sedated
with ether to make them fall asleep.
These cases may seem connected,
but have no link
from a legal perspective.
Investigations are continuing
on these two cases and others.
Police suspect
Dominique may be linked
to at least five unsolved crimes.
Gisle Pelicot is making history.
She is leaving a legacy
for all of us women.
Today, she is truly a symbol
of the fight against sexual violence.
Locally, but also in France,
Europe and all over the world.
This trial has had a huge impact
in the French society.
Many protests have been taking place
in solidarity with Gisle Pelicot.
I would like to thank all the people
who have supported me
since the beginning of this ordeal.
I was touched by this momentum,
which gives me a responsibility.
All of you give me the strength
to fight this fight to the end.
This trial is a reckoning for France
and the law around consent,
but it's also allowing women to say,
"We're here to be believed."
"Even if it's harassment
on the street,
it's being inappropriately
touched in a club."
"We're saying this is happening."
And Gisle is standing up and saying,
"Listen to us
when we say what's happening."
They're asking for 140 new measures
from the government
to fight against violence
against women.
They're asking
that all victims are believed.
Because they're referring directly
to the Gisle Pelicot case.
Ninety-four percent of rape cases
are dropped before they go to trial
so it means
that there are many women in France
that have received no justice
for what happened to her.
We're hoping that this could be
a game changer in the fight
against rape culture
and sexual violence in France.
For the local people of Mazan,
this case has been
particularly poignant.
I hope there will be
a before and after this case.
I can see it with the women
that we work with,
it's really given them courage.
Gisle is a formidable woman,
very, very strong and brave.
She's shown us
that we shouldn't feel ashamed
and that we too can reject
this shame, this guilt we feel.
Latika and Marion decide to organize
a march in Mazan
in support of Gisle.
Gisle was so touched by this
that she came to visit
the association the next day.
Meeting Gisle gave me the courage
to reopen my case, to fight
and to tell myself that being
a victim doesn't mean you are weak.
We can hold our heads high.
We can accuse without feeling shame,
that's important.
And that's what she's shown.
Many women are hoping that this case
will lead to law changes in France.
So, it isn't the case that lawyers
need to prove intent to rape a woman
and actually it becomes a form of,
you need to assort positive consent.
In December 2024,
after a historic trial,
all the men charged with the rape
of Gisle Pelicot were found guilty.
The men have been awarded
varying sentences.
Dominique received the maximum
under French law, 20 years.
I don't think we'll ever forget
the name Gisle Pelicot.
She has become
this iconic figure of strength
and somebody
who has challenged rape myths
that are still held in 2024.
This case has the merit of showing
that rapists
are everywhere in our society
and it shies away from what was
a common widespread idea
that a rapist was some monster
that was alienated from society.
By making this trial public.
Gisle said that she wants shame
to change sides.
But she's also doing this,
so that society changes,
that attitudes change,
so that the law changes too,
so that rape is seen differently,
so that people can speak freely
and victims of sexual violence
can identify with her.
And for this to serve as a lesson
to everyone, in France,
but also across the world.
I think of the unrecognized victims
whose stories remain in the shadows.
I want you to know
that we share the same fight.
I would like to express
my deepest gratitude
to all the people who supported me
throughout this ordeal.
Iyuno