What Dominique Pelicot who drugged his spouse to be raped by 50 males was actually like – from his declare that HE was a rape sufferer to why he married his spouse twice

He was a little bit of a loudmouth with an inclination to make up tales, and his fondness for playing and dwelling past his means plunged his household right into a monetary mess. 

These round him recognised that Dominique Pelicot definitely wasn’t good, however one flaw he didn’t show any signal of was an inappropriate angle to ladies. In reality, his older brother discovered the father-of-three one thing of a prude. 

‘He couldn’t stand soiled jokes,’ he recalled. ‘If we had been watching tv and there was discuss of swinging, for instance, he was essentially the most shocked. It is loopy this double persona, it is Physician Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’

Certainly, this twin persona is among the most unfathomable features of the sensational ‘monster of Avignon’ rape trial that has gripped and horrified France.

Pelicot, a 71-year-old retired electrician, oversaw a near-decade-long marketing campaign of abuse towards his spouse Gisele between 2011 and 2020 during which he systematically drugged his spouse unconscious and invited dozens of strangers to their household house to rape her on digicam – typically becoming a member of the assaults himself.

In an interview with Paris Match, his older brother – who has not been named – has given an enchanting perception into Dominique’s character, their storybook childhood and his claims he was raped as a baby by a male nurse.

His older brother mentioned that they had been ‘very shut’ as kids, sharing the identical room for 15 years and even the identical mattress at occasions. 

He recalling how Dominique was ‘adored and pampered’ by his dad and mom. Because the youngest of the household, he was their ‘darling’.

The brothers loved an idyllic childhood on the Château d’Oublaise property, house to a nineteenth century fortress within the Centre-Val de Loire countryside, the place their father was in command of electrical upkeep.

With 80 hectares of land as their playground, they went frog fishing, constructed cabins and rode on sheep as in the event that they had been in a rodeo. 

Maybe it was rising up on this carefree rural idyll that impressed an overactive creativeness in Dominique, who had an inclination for making up tales.  

A long time later, considered one of these childhood tales resurfaced in pre-trial hearings with the investigating choose when Dominique recalled being abused by a male nurse on the age of 9, after being admitted to hospital with a head harm. 

‘I used to be on a drip for a number of days, I lived by way of hell, he raped me in each doable approach,’ he informed the choose. 

His brother recalled the incident, agreeing that Dominique had reported being inappropriately touched by a male nurse on the time, however had by no means mentioned something about rape. 

What’s extra, he solid doubt on his brother’s story solely, saying that their mom had made inquiries and located that there have been solely ladies on obligation that evening.

His brother by no means believed the story, and is ‘satisfied’ that Dominique has solely resurfaced it and embellished it to ‘victimise himself and minimise his accountability’ within the horrific crimes towards his spouse. 

Dominique’s violent father was additionally cited as a doable rationalization for childhood trauma that left him broken, however his brother disagrees with this model of occasions.

He insists that his dad and mom did argue however that it solely ever grew to become bodily on one event. 

Additionally in dispute is Dominque’s declare that he needed to develop into an apprentice electrician as a result of his dad and mom ploughed all their cash into financing his brother’s medical diploma. 

He was a ‘mediocre’ pupil based on his brother, and solely scraped by in his commerce qualification, though these discrepancies of their accounts of the previous might, after all, be put all the way down to sibling rivalry. 

After a stint in actual property, Dominique grew to become a technical gross sales agent for fireplace alarms and pc gear, and whereas working at considered one of these corporations he met Gisele in 1971. 

Two years later they had been married, each aged 21, and their kids adopted rapidly – two sons and a daughter, David, Florian and Caroline. 

They had been a really devoted couple, based on buddies, and this appears to be greater than only a entrance placed on for the skin world. 

Even Gisele herself has insisted they had been joyful and that her husband was a superb man – an assertion backed up by her kids. 

Nonetheless, issues weren’t good behind closed doorways and Dominique was having monetary issues.  

In 2001, after {an electrical} engineering firm he created went bankrupt, he and Gisele divorced in order that she wouldn’t be affected by his debt settlement plan. 

It is believed that they maintained their relationship privately, and the couple married once more in 2007.

His brother additionally speaks of Dominique ‘dwelling past his means’ and says that he lent him €75,000, which he by no means acquired again. 

Nonetheless, whereas he knew his youthful sibling wasn’t good, his brother was as shocked as everybody else when he was arrested and his horrific crimes got here to mild. 

He admits he is sought assist from a therapist to manage. 

 ‘It isn’t straightforward. I needed to face the details: I misplaced my little brother,’ he mentioned. 

Pelicot’s crimes occurred on the household house of the Pelicots, in Mazan, a comfy village nestled within the foothills of Mont Ventoux within the inexperienced haven of Vaucluse, was a ‘tender place full of great reminiscences’ for his or her grown-up kids. 

In accordance with these closest to him, the Pelicots had been a textbook joyful household and their house was a ‘paradise’ that they ‘thought was immutable’. 

Recalling a typical household gathering, their daughter Caroline mentioned of her father: ‘You mild the hearth in your little barbecue and begin the grilling, you increase your head and smile at me. Round, the partitions of the home by no means cease reflecting this lovely solar that brings us all pleasure. Tom swings, Paul brings the wine. A terrace, a summer season, a household.’

Her subsequent phrases, nevertheless, carry a dramatic change in tone: ‘I hate you. Have you ever all the time been unhinged? And we’d have seen nothing? Can we miss a father? However who’re you actually?’

, all stories counsel a harmonious family the place a center class couple had been dwelling a really typical life-style for a retired couple of their 60s who had been having fun with a quieter tempo of life and all the fun of being grandparents.  

Dominique spent his days enjoying boules on the native membership and biking on his racing bike. He’d made plans with is son-in-law to take his grandson out on his bike on the route of the Tour De France within the final message they ever exchanged earlier than his arrest.

His spouse, meawhile, spent her days taking care of their grandchildren and pottering  concerning the backyard. 

One small element stands out from Dominique’s routine, albeit solely with the good thing about hindsight. 

Caroline recollects her father spending ‘all his free time’ at his pc. Even when his kids and grandchilldren had been at house, he would sit there vaping late into the evening together with his eyes ‘glued to his display’.

In the event that they thought, maybe, that their father spent somewhat an excessive amount of time on his pc, what no person had any inkling of was the depravity of his on-line actions. 

Having agreed to fulfill through a chatroom on a now defunct web site whose servers had been seized by police, dozens of males frequented the Pelicot household house, the place they generally spent as much as six hours raping an unconscious, loud night breathing Gisele whereas Dominique stood behind the digicam – however typically participated himself. 

But the Pelicots’ grownup kids all mentioned that they’d no purpose to suspect their father had waged one of the vile programmes of sexual abuse to have ever reached the nation’s courts. 

Their eldest son has insisted that nothing in Mr Pelicot’s behaviour recommended any deviance and that ‘he had all the time fulfilled his function as a father’, whereas Caroline informed Paris Match earlier this yr: ‘We had been very near him.’

In her 2022 e-book entitled ‘And I Stopped Calling You Papa’, revealed underneath the pen title Caroline Darian, Dominique’s estranged daughter described him as a thoughtful, sort man who was closely concerned in her youth.

She defined how Mr Pelicot – whom she now calls her ‘progenitor’ – inspired her in her research, her initiatives and her sporting actions. 

He accompanied her to highschool and dance lessons, drove her to and from events in her teenagers and supported her skilled decisions – and later went on to point out the identical look after his grandkids, splashing about with them within the swimming pool in Mazan. 

‘I consider us as joyful, I assumed my dad and mom had been,’ she mentioned in her 2002 e-book, entitled ‘And I Stopped Calling You Papa’, revealed underneath the pen title Caroline Darian.

She admits that even now, it is a battle to grasp how the daddy she beloved and the person whose heinous crimes are detailed in court docket are the identical individual. 

‘I attempted in useless to detect and perceive the true id of the person who raised me,’ she mentioned. 

‘Even in the present day, I ponder concerning the reality of getting seen nothing, suspected nothing. I’ll by no means forgive what he did over so a few years. Nonetheless, I’m left with the picture of the daddy I assumed I knew. Regardless of every little thing, it’s anchored in me and within the background. 

She speaks of dreaming about her father earlier than dealing with him in court docket and admits she misses him. 

‘He talks to me, we snort, we’re collectively,’ she mentioned. ‘Waking up brings me again to the nightmare: now. And I miss my father. Not the one who will stand earlier than the judges; the person who took care of me for forty-two years. Sure, I beloved him a lot earlier than discovering his monstrosity.’ 

She additionally admits to fighting letting go of all empathy that is blended together with her ‘anger and disgrace’, and has puzzled how he was coping throughout his 4 years in jail forward of the present trial. 

‘Was he in a position to adapt? Does he endure from our absence, from the solitude, violence in isolation? A second voice squeaks: “That is solely justice, after we see the hurt he has finished to us. To Mother, to us, to our household. Let this deviant handle, he reaps what he has sown.

‘Generally a sense of abandonment arises. It invades me, crushes me. Dad, why are you so distant from us? I assumed I had mourned my father. The reality is that this trial awakens the little lady in me. The one who has not but succeeded in killing the paternal picture. 

‘And I am afraid I will not be capable of hate him. Maybe this trial will assist me obtain some type of definitive mourning. My father is alive and nicely, however maybe I’ll by no means be capable of inform him straight within the eyes that he counted, and ruined a part of my life, extinguished the spark earlier than, trampled on belief that I naturally felt in direction of males.’ 

Dominique and Gisele Pelicot, met as 18-year-olds in 1971 and married two years later, starting a passionate and robust relationship that blossomed over forty years. 

Because the pair approached their 60s, they needed to commerce the city of Villiers-sur-Marne close to Paris, the place Dominique had labored for French power firm EDF whereas Gisele constructed a 20-year profession as an organization supervisor, for sunnier climes within the South. 

Cash hadn’t all the time been straightforward to return by – the 2008 monetary crash ruining Dominique’s foray into the world of actual property and makes an attempt at entrepreneurship – however Gisele’s secure revenue meant they’d saved sufficient to hire a beautiful bungalow with a pool and a lush backyard. 

They settled right into a rosy retirement in Mazan, a comfy village nestled within the foothills of Mont Ventoux within the inexperienced haven of Vaucluse, and revelled of their function as doting grandparents, internet hosting the entire household for holidays and having fun with late night meals out on the terrace in the summertime haze.

But it surely was round then that Caroline and her siblings started to note their mom’s well being steadily deteriorate.

Gisele started complaining of signs of fogginess and disorientation, and on a number of events suffered reminiscence loss so extreme that she started to suspect Alzheimer’s illness.  

Medical doctors carried out mind scans however had been left at a loss as to why Gisele was experiencing such crippling amnesia, all whereas battling what appeared to be a rising abundance of gynaecological issues, weight reduction and debilitating fatigue. 

The true reason behind her bodily and psychological malaise, revealed in 2020, turned out to be darker and extra perverse than the even essentially the most sordid and cynical observer might have dreamt up. 

Mr Pelicot, the as soon as heat and devoted father and husband, is now on trial for a near-decade lengthy marketing campaign of drugging and sexually abusing his spouse for the digicam – together with 50 different males he invited to the household house to participate within the heinous exercise. 

All 51 males stand accused of aggravated rape – the most important variety of defendants to have been tried collectively lately anyplace in France.

Prosecutors had been unable to establish a number of different people believed to have participated within the barbaric operation who are actually set to flee justice. 

That is to not say there weren’t some indicators within the years previous to the skin-crawling revelation of Dominique’s crimes that the Pelicots’ as soon as blooming relationship was strained.

Writing about one incident in the summertime of 2018, Caroline recollects how her brother went to go to their dad and mom for a night meal solely to see his mom virtually falling asleep on the dinner desk.

‘Just a few minutes after sitting down Maman was swaying in her chair as if she was drunk,’ he informed Caroline.

‘Instantly her complete physique was drained of power, like a rag doll.’

‘It occurs. It is higher if I take her to mattress,’ his father was reported as saying, feigning the function of a involved husband appearing in his spouse’s finest pursuits.

‘In actuality the cocktail of medication, poured into her glass of rosé, was starting to take impact,’ Caroline mentioned. 

As the assorted signs of her abuse grew ever tougher to disregard, Mr Pelicot dedicated to a deplorable strategy of manipulation and gaslighting to keep away from suspicion. 

Within the late eighties, Gisele had launched into a two-year affair with the one different man she ever willingly slept with apart from her husband, based on her testimony. 

The couple overcame the incident and remained fortunately married, occurring to have three kids. 

However when his spouse complained of extreme ache and examined optimistic for a sexually transmitted illness after years of getting been raped by strangers, Mr Pelicot seized the chance in charge it on one other episode of supposed infidelity. 

Caroline claimed that when Gisele informed her husband she wanted remedy for the unexplained sickness, he remarked: ‘So, what are you doing along with your days?’ and accused her of enjoying round whereas he was out enjoying boules or biking. 

Regardless of the nasty accusation and mounting proof one thing was flawed, the loving spouse remained unaware that her husband had something to do together with her malaise. 

So blind was Gisele to Mr Pelicot’s horrendous misdeeds that she was even prepared to forgive him when he was arrested by police in September 2020, after he was caught snapping photos up the skirts of feminine grocery store customers. 

Police investigating the case confiscated Dominique’s pc and later found he had meticulously recorded, filed and catalogued a near-decade-long string of incessant abuse. 

It wasn’t till officers sat Gisele down and confronted her with the plain proof that the unconscious, gasping physique she was watching being violated was her personal did her litany of hitherto inexplicable signs make sense.

That realisation, after all, introduced her whole world and that of her cherished household crashing down. 

In a robust 90-minute-long testimony earlier than the court docket in Avignon this week, Gisele opened up on how the invention drove her to the brink of suicide and left her daughter in a psychiatric ward. 

‘We had every little thing, we had an excellent life. I do not perceive how this might have occurred. 

‘I solely needed one factor and that was to vanish. I informed myself: ”I’m going to get in my automotive with my canine and finish all of it”.

‘I needed to inform my kids that their father was in custody. I referred to as my son-in-law and informed my daughter and informed them: ”He raped me”. Then I heard my daughter screaming a deep cry that I can’t get out of my head. 

‘After I informed my sons about this, I do not suppose they actually understood. They withdrew. 

‘[That] night, the kids rang on a regular basis saying ”do not disappear”… they had been frightened I’d die.’

Caroline herself recounted to the choose the second she heard, from her personal mom, precisely what sort of monster her father was. 

‘Then my mom referred to as me to say that there was an issue with my father. I think about that he’s intensive care, that he’s dying.

‘However she tells me that my father has been drugging her for years in order that strangers can rape her in her personal mattress.

‘She says she has seen photographs of what occurred to her and that the police wish to present her movies of what occurred.

‘I completely misplaced my foundations. Fortuitously my husband [Pierre] was there and my six yr previous son too. We took him away in order that he didn’t hear his mom’s screams.’

Caroline later discovered that Mr Pelicot’s repulsive exploits weren’t restricted to his spouse. 

She too had been photographed half-naked and unconscious by her father – a reality police proved after they identified one of many weak our bodies in his stack of photographs bore her unmistakable delivery mark.

‘I uncover that my father photographed me with out my data. I understood instantly that it was me in these photographs. I don’t sleep like that. So I strongly consider that he drugged me,’ she mentioned. 

Mr Pelicot and 14 of his co-accused have admitted their half in France’s worst rape case. 

However one other 35 males – from all walks of life – deny that they pressured themselves on Madame Pelicot whereas she was unconscious, claiming that she indirectly consented.

Gisele has unequivocally rejected their claims and is outspoken about her want to see all of them dropped at justice.  

‘Among the defendants admit the details, others contest all of the details, and others verify they had been current however deny it was rape,’ her lawyer mentioned.

‘You caught 4 sexually transmitted illnesses and had been uncovered to HIV six occasions. What have you ever acquired to say to individuals who declare you consented to all this?’

The courageous mother-of-three replied: ‘All I’ve to say is, it is an insult to my intelligence. These people had been completely conscious of what state I used to be in. I by no means knowingly took half in any of this stuff.

‘I used to be a useless lady and these males benefit from me, they defile me, they deal with me like a bin bag. 

‘How are you going to even try to make folks suppose {that a} lady would knowingly participate in all this?’

It stays to be seen whether or not each defendant within the scarcely plausible case can be discovered responsible, with the trial set to stretch till Christmas.

Mr Pelicot’s scrupulous documentation of the abuse, to not point out the trove of vile messages he exchanged with every man who visited the household house, means prosecutors had been in a position to cost 51 folks in complete. 

However even when justice is finally served, the halcyon reminiscences shared by each  member of the Pelicot household will stay perpetually tainted by their patriarch’s inescapable betrayal. 

In spite of everything, as Caroline asks: ‘What do you do when your father is among the worst sexual predators of the final 20 years?’