Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old woman, made headlines after she filed a case against her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, accusing him of repeatedly raping her and enlisting strangers to abuse her while she was heavily sedated in their home over the course of a decade.
During the trial, their daughter, Caroline Darian tearfully recounted learning of the abuse from her mother on November 2, 2020, after Gisèle spoke to investigators.
‘Did he also drug me?’
Darian initially believed she had heard the worst when investigators revealed her father had been drugging her mother’s food and drink and arranging for strangers to assault her.
However, just hours later, an urgent call revealed more disturbing evidence. Among the 20,000 photographs and videos documenting Gisèle’s abuse, investigators uncovered two images depicting a younger woman unconscious in bed.
Initially, Darian failed to identify the person in the images.
The realisation struck only when the officer enquired if she possessed a brown mole on her right cheek similar to the woman in the photographs, leading to additional unsettling thoughts.
“How could he have photographed me in the middle of the night without waking me? Did he also drug me?” she said.
“Worse still, did he abuse me?” she added.
‘I stopped calling you father’
According to The Guardian, in her upcoming book, “Et j’ai cessé de t’appeler papa”(And I Stopped Calling You Father), set to be published in English next month under her pen name Caroline Darian, she reveals how she became increasingly disturbed by the unsettling realization that she might also have fallen victim to her father’s deviant behavior.
“The quilt was lifted on the right side so you could see her bottom close up. She was sleeping. I thought she was astonishingly pale and with dark circles under her eyes. The police officer handed me the second photo. The sheets reminded me vaguely of something but nothing more. I repeated that I didn’t recognise myself,” she recalls. “No, it’s not me,” Darian wrote.
‘Around my daughter, naked’
Whilst denying allegations of abusing his daughter, Dominique faces additional charges related to violating Darian’s privacy. Police discovered evidence that he had shared secretly recorded footage of her online, stored in a folder labelled “Around my daughter, naked”.
Darian had left the courtroom in distress just 20 minutes into the second day of proceedings when the judge revealed that naked photomontages of her had been found on her father’s computer.
71-year-old, Dominique, has confessed to drugging his wife with a mixture of sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medicines from 2011 to 2020. During this period, he facilitated the sexual assault of his unconscious wife by at least 73 men at their residence in Mazan, near Carpentras in Provence.
The Avignon court is simultaneously trying 50 men, with ages spanning from 26 to 74, who were contacted through an online chat room. They stand accused of sexually assaulting or raping 72-year-old Gisèle.
Darian’s book details how these events disrupted her own life and nearly caused an irreparable break with her mother, who initially struggled to accept the truth about her husband of many years and father of their three children.
‘Recurring unexplained blackouts’
She describes how her father concealed sedative drugs within a sock in a garage hiking shoe, accumulated loans under his wife’s name, and amassed substantial financial obligations.
Darian explains how she and her siblings were worried about their mother’s recurring unexplained periods of unconsciousness and memory issues – caused by administered sedatives – leading them to suggest neurological consultation, suspecting Alzheimer’s.
When confronting their father, whom Darian now calls her “genitor”, he would dismiss their concerns, attributing them to stress and sleeplessness, or deflect the conversation, she indicates.
“Why would we have even thought of a drug test,” she writes. “But over time with the increasing number of absences, maman was always worried. She often had difficulty sleeping, her hair fell out, she lost weight – more than 10 kgs in eight years. She was afraid she’d have a stroke at any moment…”
‘She had no memory of our chats’
According to Darian, Gisèle memory functioned normally during visits with her children. “But when they left we had difficulty reaching her for 48 hours when she got back to Mazan. My father would answer her phone. He’d say she was resting and recuperating from their stay. Always the same lie… and to think we believed it,” The Guardian reported.
She continues: “I lost count of the times my mother seemed not all there. The most worrying was when she had no memory of our chats only a day or two before. As if her brain was updating.”
Darian indicates her mother’s final period of unconsciousness occurred on October 22 2020, coinciding with the last documented assault. This happened over a month after Pelicot’s September 20 arrest for inappropriate filming at a supermarket, and 11 days before his detention.
Her mother also experienced unexplained gynecological issues, which were attributed to stress or tiredness. As Gisèle previously stated in court: “There were signs. I just didn’t see them at the time.”
‘Without their knowledge’
Authorities haven’t located at least twelve other men recorded by Dominique. Most defendants resided within 40 miles of the couple’s residence; Dominique recruited many through an online forum called “without their knowledge”, which has since been closed.
Court psychiatrist Laurent Layet, who assessed 20 defendants including three sessions with Dominique – stated they couldn’t be considered “ordinary men…because that would be tantamount to saying that all men are capable of such acts.”
Choosing a public trial to raise awareness about sexual abuse and drug-induced blackouts, Gisèle has had to confront 51 of her alleged rapists, with the case set to continue until December.
