Pelicot rape case

Over a period of nine years, from July 2011 to October 2020, Dominique Pelicot, a man from Mazan in south-eastern France, repeatedly drugged and raped his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, and invited male strangers through the internet to rape her while she was unconscious. Gisèle, who was unaware of the abuse being perpetrated against her, was raped at least 92 times by 72 different men while her husband filmed and photographed them. The crimes were discovered in September 2020 after Dominique was arrested for taking upskirt photographs of women in a supermarket; the ensuing police investigation uncovered hundreds of images on his computer equipment of men raping his wife.

The trial of Dominique and 50 other men accused of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault began in Avignon on 2 September 2024, and concluded on 16 December, with verdicts delivered on 19 December. All were convicted, with Dominique receiving the maximum 20-year prison term. Dominique was also found guilty of taking indecent images of his daughter and two daughters-in-law, and the rape of the wife of co-defendant Jean-Pierre Maréchal, who was charged with drugging and raping his own wife, and not Gisèle.

Gisèle's decision to waive her right to anonymity and insistence on a public trial attracted worldwide media attention and admiration. The trial drew attention to drug-facilitated sexual assault and issues around consent.

Background

Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot were both born in 1952. Gisèle Pelicot, née Guillou, was born in Villingen in what was then West Germany, where her father served in the French Armed Forces. She moved to France at the age of five. Although she lost her mother at the age of nine, she later described her childhood as happy and stable. Dominique Pelicot was born in Quincy-sous-Sénart in the Paris region and spent part of his youth in Luçay-le-Mâle, central France, where his parents worked as janitors in a rehabilitation centre.

Whereas Gisèle came from a relatively privileged background and felt loved by her family, Dominique had a working-class, troubled upbringing. According to Dominique, his father was brutal and abusive to his mother and raped his adopted sister. He also said that he was molested by a male nurse at the age of nine and that, as a teenager, he was forced to witness a gang rape. Dominique later blamed his "perversion" on those childhood traumas, which he said his marriage had helped him overcome for several decades. After two years of secondary education, Dominique had to stop going to school to start an apprenticeship as an electrician; he started working aged 13, and had to give 80% of his wages to his father. During judicial proceedings, it was speculated that Dominique suffered from an inferiority complex compared to his wife's background, which may have contributed to his behavior.

Gisèle and Dominique met in 1971, when they were both 18 years old, and married in April 1973. Gisèle was employed in administration at Électricité de France, while Dominique worked as an electrician and estate agent and later founded several small businesses that were unsuccessful. The couple lived in the Paris region and had three children.

Their marriage experienced a crisis in the mid-1980s when Gisèle had a three-year affair with a colleague. In 1986, when the Pelicots' youngest son was born, Dominique doubted he was the child's biological father. The Pelicots separated the following year, selling the home they owned jointly, though they later reconciled and resumed their life together. Dominique also had several affairs. In the early 1990s the couple separated again when Dominique left Gisèle for another woman; the Pelicots reconciled once more after a few months. In 2001, due to Dominique's business failures, the Pelicots divorced to protect their assets from his creditors while continuing to live together; they remarried in 2007 under a more beneficial regime.

In 2013, the Pelicots retired to Mazan, in the Vaucluse department of south-eastern France. Gisèle joined a local choir, while Dominique pursued cycling, home maintenance and other leisure activities. They were regularly visited by their children and grandchildren and spent time with friends in the area. Before the crimes were uncovered, Gisèle was unaware that Dominique had been fined for upskirting women near Paris in 2010; he was fined €100 for that offense. At the time, police found that Dominique's DNA matched a sample in the National Automated Genetic Fingerprint File, which connected him to an unsolved 1999 rape case. The judiciary was notified but due to organizational problems the information was not processed, allowing Dominique to avoid arrest.

As he approached retirement, Dominique spent much of his free time looking for pornography on the Internet. He attributed this to sexual frustration in his marriage because his wife refused to engage in certain practices and was not interested in swinging. Around 2010 or 2011, an online acquaintance sent Dominique photos of his wife whom he sedated, and instructed him on how he could do the same to his own partner. After hesitating for a short while, Dominique decided to follow suit.

Patterns of abuse

Dominique's abuse of Gisèle started after she was prescribed lorazepam (Temesta), an anxiolytic drug, which made her drowsy. Gisèle only took it for a short while, but Dominique took advantage of this by secretly adding pills to her food and drinks, causing her to lose consciousness. He obtained additional Temesta from his doctor; he had been prescribed 450 pills in one year alone, and was also prescribed Viagra.

While Gisèle was unconscious, Dominique committed sexual acts, such as anal sex, which his wife had not wished to participate in, or dressed her in lingerie she refused to wear. He filmed and photographed the abuse originally for his own gratification, but quickly began to share the videos and photos online. To publish his material, Dominique used Coco, an online chat with no moderation where he created a forum called à son insu ('without her knowledge', lit. 'with her unknowing'). He eventually started soliciting men to rape Gisèle.

On the forum, Dominique claimed that he and his wife shared a fetish for men having sex with her while she was asleep, and did not state outright that he drugged and abused her without her knowledge; he used the website's private messaging system to invite other men to rape his wife. Dominique, using the online alias "Marc Dorian," selected his co-perpetrators by communicating with them first on Coco, then on Skype where he detailed how they would proceed. Skype messages were found in which he boasted of drugging his wife.

The first documented rape committed by Dominique with another man occurred on July 23, 2011 at the Pelicots' home in Villiers-sur-Marne, near Paris. The co-perpetrator was never identified. The men whom Dominique invited to rape his wife were given strict instructions to, for example, avoid smelling of fragrance or cigarette smoke, in case it alerted Gisèle to their presence. Dominique asked them to avoid "brusque gestures," as he "hated brutality." No money was exchanged. The men were not required to use condoms, and Gisèle was found to have four sexually transmitted infections after the abuse came to light. One rapist was HIV-positive; however, he was being treated and had an undetectable viral load, so he did not expose her to the virus.

By the time the Pelicots retired and settled in Mazan, Dominique had perfected his modus operandi: he kept his tranquilisers in a shoebox in their garage, switching brands because the first was too salty to be added to Gisèle's food and drink without her noticing it. Besides the tranquilisers, Dominique also fed Gisèle powerful muscle relaxants, so her body would not feel pain on the day after each rape. Sex toys were sometimes used on Gisèle. In some videos, she appeared to choke when the men thrust their penises into her mouth. During his trial, Dominique said that he had raped his wife two or three times a week, either alone or with someone else. Dominique kept around 300 videos and pictures on a hard drive in a folder called "Abuses." Investigations showed that the number of rape videos had increased from 2016. In the videos, Dominique made obscene comments.

Dominique also communicated online with men who said they were drugging and abusing their own partners. He discussed visiting them to participate in their crimes, though this did not take place. Several of these men were identified and charged in separate cases. Dominique convinced another man, Jean-Pierre Maréchal, to replicate his pattern by sedating and raping his own wife. Maréchal never went to Mazan, but instead invited Dominique at his home in Drôme. Dominique travelled there a dozen times between 2015 and 2020 to rape Maréchal's wife. On several occasions, he gave Maréchal sedatives for his next visit. Half of their attempts were unsuccessful because Maréchal had miscalculated the doses. The media later called Maréchal Pelicot's "disciple," or "clone."