50 people charged in Gisele Pellicote’s gang rape

They are young, old, strong, thin, black and white. These include firefighters, lorry drivers, soldiers, security guards, a journalist and a DJ.

These are the 50 men accused of raping Giselle Pellicott on the orders of her 72-year-old husband, Dominic Pellicott, who put her on prescription sleeping pills for a decade.

The fact that they largely represent a microcosm of French society means that they have been dubbed monsieur-tout-le-monde (Mr. Everyman).

He will be sentenced next week at the end of a trial that began in September. If found guilty, they collectively face more than 600 years in prison.

Some of them act defiant, but they mostly look down as they answer the judges’ questions, occasionally looking up to look into the eyes of their lawyers for reassurance.

Warning: Some details of this story you may find disturbing

All of these 50 Pelicotes come from towns and villages within a 50 km (30-mile) radius of Mazan’s own village.

Some defense attorneys have generally viewed this as a valuable line of defense. “Ordinary people do extraordinary things,” said Antoine Minier, a lawyer representing the three defendants.

He told the BBC, “I think almost everyone can get into a situation like this – OK, maybe not exactly like this – but be susceptible to committing serious crimes.”

Prosecutors have based the court’s sentence demand on aggravating factors. The number of times the defendants came to Pellicott’s home, whether they touched Gisele Pellicott sexually, and whether they penetrated her.

Joseph See, 69, a retired sports coach and beloved grandfather, faces up to four years in prison for sexual assault if convicted. It is the lenientest sentence requested by prosecutors.

At the other end of the scale is Romain V, 63, who faces 18 years in prison. He was knowingly HIV positive and yet he is accused of raping Gisele Pellicot on six separate occasions without wearing protection.

Prosecutors are able to go into this level of detail because, unusually for a rape trial, there is a surprising amount of evidence, such as The alleged attacks were filmed over nearly a decade by Dominique Pellicot,

He has admitted all the charges against him and told the court that all his 50 co-accused are also guilty.

All the video evidence meant that no one could deny that they ever visited the Pellicotes’ home. But the majority strongly oppose aggravated rape charges, which can carry heavy sentences.

France’s rape law defines rape as any sexual act committed by “violence, force, threat or surprise”; There is no reference to the need for consent.

Therefore, they also argue that they cannot be guilty of rape because they were unaware that Gisele Pellicot was in no condition to give her consent.

A defense lawyer said, “There can be no crime without an intention to do so.”

“My body raped him, but my mind didn’t,” volunteer firefighter Christian L. insisted in an example of the complex logic offered by some men.

One man in his 50s who is not accused of raping Gisele Pellicot is 63-year-old Jean-Pierre M., who has been dubbed a “protégé” of Dominique Pellicot.

After learning how to drug his wife to abuse him, he did so for five years and admitted it.

He blames his crimes on meeting Dominic Pellicott, whom he says was “convincing like a cousin”. Prosecutors are seeking a 17-year prison sentence.

Ahmed T, a 54-year-old plumber who has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 30 years, said if he had to rape someone, he would not have chosen the 60-year-old woman.

Redouane A., an unemployed man in his 40s, argued that if he had set out to rape Gisele he would not have let her husband take the video.

Some also say they were intimidated by Dominic Pellicote, who a lawyer told the BBC was a “disgusting character”.

The male nurse, Redouan E., in tears, told the courtroom he was so scared of her he couldn’t leave the bedroom. “You probably can’t tell from the video, but I was really scared!” He told the judges.

Others say that they were offered drinks that were laced with drugs and therefore cannot remember the encounter, although Dominic Pellicote has denied doing so.

However, the majority say that they were manipulated or deceived by Dominique Pellicot, who convinced them that they were taking part in a sex game with a consenting couple.

“He was put into a situation where he was defrauded,” Joseph C’s lawyer Christophe Bruschi told the BBC. “He was taken for a ride.”

But Dominic Pellicote has always said that he made it clear to people that his wife had no knowledge of the conspiracy.

He instructed them to avoid waking her up or to leave signs that they were there — such as warming their hands before touching his wife, or not smelling of perfume or cigarettes, he said.

“They knew all along, they can’t deny it.”

Since September, 50 people have appeared, one after another, before the court in Avignon.

Generally, character investigation in rape cases can take several days.

The trial, due to the large number of defendants involved, has been limited to a maximum of a few hours. Their lives have been dissected at record speed, often turning court sessions into a series of stories of abuse and trauma.

Simon M., a 43-year-old construction worker, said she was raped when she was 11 by a family friend who employed her to tend cattle in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

Father-of-four Jean-Luc L, 46, told the court how he and his family left Vietnam on a canoe as a child and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for several years before moving to France.

Fabian S., a 39-year-old man who had several prior convictions including drug dealing and sexual assault of a minor, was abused and beaten by his foster parents from a very young age. Like many others, she said she realized only during court-ordered psychiatrist appointments that her hazy, painful childhood memories were actually of rape.

Several wives, partners and family members of the defendants were called to give character statements. They, too, were struggling for answers as they tried to understand how the men in their lives “got stuck in this kind of situation,” as one woman put it.

Christian L’s elderly father said, “I was shocked, it doesn’t seem like him at all. He was the joy of my life.”

Like four others, the firefighter is also being investigated for possessing child abuse images and could face up to 16 years in prison. “Something must have happened, he must have become sad,” his father thought out loud.

Corinne, the ex-wife of former builder Thierry Pa, 54, said he has always been “kind” and “respectful” towards her and their children and appears to have left the door open to a reconciliation.

“When they told me what he was accused of I said: ‘Never, that’s impossible… I don’t understand what he’s doing here.'” He believed it was his 18th birthday. One year old son had died. This caused her ex-husband to fall into a deep depression, start drinking and eventually get in touch with Dominique Pellicote.

“I will always be there for him, no matter what,” said Guyanese-born John K’s ex-girlfriend. At 27, he is the youngest of the defendants and is a former soldier in the French army.

He has denied raping Gisele Pellicote on two occasions. While he knew she would be unconscious, he said he did not realize that she had not given her consent.

In floods of tears, a woman named Samira said she had spent the last three and a half years “looking for answers” as to why Jerome V had gone to Pellicotes six times.

“We had sex every day, I don’t understand why he had to look elsewhere,” she said, sobbing. She is still in a relationship with Jerome V, who was working as a vegetable vendor at the time of her arrest.

He is one of the few men to admit to raping Giselle, saying that he liked the idea of ​​having “free rein” on her – but attributed this to his “uncontrolled sexuality”.

Several former and current partners of the defendants have been tested to see if they too were drugged like Giselle. One woman said she would “always have a horrible suspicion” that the “respectable, thoughtful, sweet man” she knew had also abused her without her knowledge.

Since the beginning of the trial, much attention has been paid to the need to find the one element that links all these people together.

A common denominator – other than the fact that everyone went to Pellicotes of their own free will – was “nowhere to be found,” Gisele’s own lawyers have said.

But one thing is unquestionably common among all defendants: they all made a conscious choice not to go to the police.

Firefighter Jacques C, 73, said he had considered it but “then life goes on”, while electrician Patrice N, 55, said he “didn’t want to waste the whole day at the police station”.

Early in the trial, Giselle Pellicote was asked if she thought it was legitimate to think that her husband had molested men.

She shook her head: “They didn’t rape me with a gun to the head. They raped me with full conscience.”

Almost as an afterthought, she asked: “Why didn’t they go to the police? Even an anonymous phone call could have saved my life.”

“But no one did,” he said after a pause. “Not one of them.”