The ex-wife of the so-called ‘Monster of Avignon’ spoke out after her former husband stunned a French courtroom by admitting all the abuse charges against him and saying: “I am a rapist like the others in the room.”
Dominique Pelicot’s surprise confession that he drugged and raped his unwitting wife Gisèle over 10 years during their outwardly happy marriage also appears to have implicated the 50 co-defendants accused of sexually assaulting her.
“They all knew, they cannot say the contrary,” said Pelicot, a 71-year-old former electrician.
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Referring to his wife, he told Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon, France: “I was very happy with her… She did not deserve this.”
Gisèle Pelicot was offered the opportunity to respond to her now ex-husband’s testimony. Looking impassively at him, she said: “It is difficult for me to listen to this. For 50 years, I lived with a man who I would’ve never imagined could be capable of this. I trusted him completely.”
She waived immunity before the September 2 start of the trial. Her attorneys said she opened the court to the public with the intention of ensuring that any “shame” was focused on her former spouse.
Earlier in the trial, a psychologist testified that Pelicot blamed his then-wife for his actions in drugging her because she refused to share his desire to participate in “swinging.”
In the dock on Tuesday, Pelicot said: “I am guilty of what I did. I subjected my wife, my children, my grandchildren to this. I regret what I did. I ask for forgiveness even if it is not forgivable.”
He blamed his abuse on being raped by a male nurse when he was nine.
“I only remember shocks and traumas from my youth. She did not deserve this,” Pelicot added. “I admit it. We are not born perverts, we become them. I think that what I have experienced is preponderant in my story.”
Talking about the child abuse he said he suffered, Pelicot told the hushed court: “It was in the dark, I had a bandage and a headache. A guy came and said to me, ‘My name is Basile, do you want some candy?’ There were caresses, I felt a mustache, a great deal of pain, I didn’t understand what was happening to me.”
Pelicot insisted he didn’t abuse any other members of his family. “We had three children, and grandchildren, whom I never touched,” he said. “I can look my family in the eyes and tell them that nothing else occurred.”
He denied hating his wife, claiming that he was “crazy” about her during their marriage and still loved her.
“I loved her well for 40 years and badly for 10,” he said.
Asked why he didn’t stop drugging his wife and filming her being raped by strangers after she exhibited signs of illness that turned out to be side effects from the medication, Pelicot answered: “I tried to stop, but my addiction was stronger, the need was growing. I was trying to reassure her, I betrayed her trust. I should’ve stopped sooner. In fact, I should’ve never started at all.”
Pelicot entered court using a cane after being absent from court for several days suffering from a kidney infection.
Pelicot’s lawyer Béatrice Zavarro told French television, according to the BBC, that her client was “sharing his truth.”
“The confession is now underway and he will continue,” she added. “We will get to the end of this trial and we will know everything about Dominique Pelicot.”
