“I wanted to open the doors of this trial last September so that society can see what was happening. I have confidence in our capacity, collectively, to find a better future, in which men and women alike can live harmlessly together with mutual respect.”
This statement of 72-year-old Madame Gisèle Pelicot, delivered at the end of the landmark mass-rape trial in France, not only brings an ending to 2024, but also carries a message of hope for 2025.
Gisèle Pelicot is a woman whose bravery shines as a beacon of inspiration for justice. Refusing to be humiliated by the crimes of others, she agreed that the sex tapes her ex-husband had been filming for almost a decade, of strange men he had invited to rape her while she was sedated, be used as evidence in an open court, leading to the conviction of 50 men, as well as her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot.
My respect and admiration for this lady can almost not be expressed in words, save to say her courage resonates with the spirit of womanhood, echoing over the world. Also, I wish to express my respect for the security guard who spotted Dominique Pelicot, the police officers, journalists, lawyers and the judges who all brought these men to justice, and to her family and followers, who support her.
“It’s not for us to feel shame – its for them. Above all I am expressing my will and determination to change this society,” said Gisele.
Like a Pandora’s box, this trial lifted the lid to reflect on a segment of society’s perspectives on consent, rape and patriarchal entitlement to a woman’s body. Gisele’s determination to change society has opened the doors to a review of laws pertaining to sexual consent. Consent does not only pertain to under-aged children, but also to adults who are not in a position to voice consent, or to those who are oppressed.
During the trial, most of the 50 defendants testified that they were under the impression that there was consent, since the husband had invited them to have sex with his unconscious wife, implying that the wife had prior knowledge and that it was a ‘sex game’ of the couple. This plays into the patriarchal mentality that men own women – as two of the rapists admitted, it was only when they were in prison on remand that they realised women do not belong to men and what consent really meant. One of them testified he had many encounters with swingers’ couples-sex where it was commonly accepted that only the man gave consent. A few defendants were gay and desired sex with Dominique and ‘played along’ to rape his wife, to please him. Another said if he wanted to rape a woman, he would not have chosen a 57-year-old woman, he would have chosen a pretty one! One man, who had a prior record of possession of child pornography, said he would like to create an association to teach men about consent. It is a society poor in morals if adult men need to be educated about consent.
The case in summary:
From 2011 to 2020, Gisele’s now ex-husband, Dominique, invited men to have sex with his drugged wife. Men from ages 26 to 74, and occupations ranging from truck drivers, journalist, nurse, councillor, soldier, farm worker, software engineers, etc took him up on his on-line invitation and travelled from an average 60 km radius to arrive at the couple’s home in the village of Mazan in Provence. Some were local and would just walk over. Some were married and fathers, some grandfathers, some were single. Some of these men had prior criminal convictions ranging from drunk driving, possession of drugs, domestic violence, burglary, sexual violence, possession of child pornography, robbery, rape and possession of weapons. Some apologised to Gisele. One admitted her life was destroyed and the effect this would have on her whole family. One apologised and said: “We are not monsters, we are men like any others.”
Some Ordinary Men
And this is what makes this trial so incredible – it spotlights that these are ordinary men. Dr Laurent Layet, psychiatrist working at Montfavet hospital and president of the Compagnie Nationale des Experts Psychiatrists pres les Cours d’Appel, evaluated 20 of the 50 defendants, including Dominique Pelicot and testified in the trial. In a BBC interview Dr Layet said: “Are they ordinary men, I cannot say, that would be tantamount to saying all men are capable of such acts.” He is reported to have said they were not monsters, for most of them did not have the ‘criminological profile of a serial killer’.
As a forensic profiler of serial killers (and serial rapists) I disagree with Dr Layet on this one point. The criminological profile of a serial killer is definitely not that serial killers are monsters. Serial killers are ordinary men, not monsters, and it is regrettable that some medical experts still perpetuate the public myth that they are monsters or not human, or superhuman. Ordinary men are quite capable of committing heinous and horrendous crimes, but this is certainly not tantamount that all ordinary men are potential rapists! I do agree that many men grasp consent and understand exactly what rape is, but also many men do not, and many men do know, yet they still do it.
Why would ordinary men have non-consenting sex with a drugged woman? During their testimonies, motivations or excuses offered for their behaviour ranged from sexual frustration; their partners were absent or refused them sex; they were bored; one experienced insecurity about his penis size; some were lonely, curious, or angry at women. Some pleaded deviant sexuality and that they could not control their urges, others did it for fun, and one celebrated ending his bachelor status, as he was getting married.
Many of these men suffered sexual abuse and violence as children and were placed in foster care. Many abused alcohol and cannabis as children and as adults. Most of them did not have a ‘happy childhood’ – which is no excuse for committing crimes. Dr Layet also found no scientific relationship exists between cause and effect of a victim becoming a perpetrator. This is true, not all victims of sexual abuse become perpetrators later, but in my experience, it is not uncommon to find childhood sexual abuse in the history of a sexual perpetrator. However in this case there were also men who claimed absolutely no abuse in their childhoods, on the contrary they described their childhoods as idyllic – which one again indicate that ordinary people can commit unpardonable crimes.
Psychological Assessment of Dominie Pelicot?
For Dominique Pelicot, Dr Layet offered a more complicated explanation: “his mind had become divided, over time, like a partitioned computer disk, into two entirely separate water-tight parts… with no leakage between them. His split personality is very effective and very solid. We either have the ‘normal Mr Pelicot’ or the other Mr Pelicot at night, in the bedroom.”
This is confusing for the term ‘split personality’ was pounced upon by the defence lawyers that Dominique Pelicot suffered from a dissociative identity disorder, which is a serious and very rare mental illness. One of the elements of this disorder would be that completely separate personalities exist, without one being aware of the others. Yet Dominique Pelicot saved the video recordings of men raping his wife on his computer. If this was done by one personality, how would the other personality know the password to the computer? Also he admitted the offences to the police officers, so he had knowledge of them – there is no dissociative state in Dominique Pelicot’s personality. Perhaps ‘compartmentalize’ would have been a more apt word choice than ‘split personality”.
In my experience, serial killers also live very normal lives, but they hide the fact that they kill people, for obvious reasons and not because they suffer from dissociative identity disorder. I have met many of them and they are not raving monsters – they are ordinary men.
Dr Layet and others were struck by the arrogance and confidence of Dominique Pelicot’s demeanour and his lack of remorse, which is more indicative of an anti-social personality disorder (in laymen’s terms a psychopath.) Diminished responsibility does not come into play with personality disorders – but it may come into play with a serious mental illness like dissociative identity disorder. In a previous article I discussed the difference between a mental illness and a personality disorder.
Dominique Pelicot did not try to conceal his crime, he openly discussed it online with potential accomplices and invited them to his home – revealing his identity and his address. So, his personality was certainly not split and not so compartmentalized that the one side of him did not know what the other was doing. He was just good at masking it from his family.
Dominique Pelicot – a Family Man
Dominique Pelicot, 72, a retired electrician and former estate agent and the husband of Gisele for 50 years, was regarded as a family man, and a grandfather. Despite marital problems, Gisele counted herself lucky for having such a caring husband, who brought her ice cream in bed at night. Yet the same ‘family’ man secretly filmed other men raping his sedated wife and he secretly filmed his daughters-in-law and his own daughter and shared photographs of them on-line. This is an element of candaulism: posting of personal images of a partner on the internet, or showing off a partner’s body.
Dominique Pelicot was spotted filming up women’s skirts (upskirting) in a supermarket by an alert security guard who urged the women to lay charges with the police, which led to a full-on investigation by officers of the Carpentras police station. Their investigation and house search led to the uncovering of the incriminating videos on his laptop.
Although Dominique succeeded in portraying the facade of a happy married man, father and grandfather, his co-defendants’ testimony draws the curtain as to his attitude and true feelings about his former wife: Dominique claimed Gisele was a prudish bitch who did not want threesomes; Dominique was “looking for a pervert accomplice to abuse my wife, she takes sleeping pills and I take advantage”; he ”wanted to punish his wife for having an affair”; he was “looking for a gift for his wife on Valentine’s Day”; “she liked making love when she was drunk.” He “would like to drug her and take her to motorway laybys and hand her to men”; “You’re like me, you like rape mode.” She is a “slut, a service slut” and a whore” and he wrote on her body I’m a submissive slut”. Dominique is clearly one of those men who believe they are superior to women, entitled to a woman’s body, and that they have the right to make executive decisions for an adult, autonomous woman, just because she wears his wedding ring – this attitude usually extend to their daughters too and Dominique’s daughter and daughters-in-law were also his victims of candaulism.
Dominique recorded more than 200 videos of Gisele in a comatose state being raped. He obtained sedatives from his doctor and perfected a dose that would leave her drugged for 7 hours. Afterwards he would wash her and put her pyjamas back on. She would wake up a little dazed, and sometimes very tired. Believing she was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer or brain tumours, she consulted many doctors with a ‘loyal and supportive’ husband in tow.
Upon further investigation, the detectives found Dominique’s DNA matched that of a man who in 1999 tricked a 23-year-old estate agent, with the pseudonym Marion, into showing him an apartment, tied her hands behind her back, placed ether over her mouth, and removed her clothes. He held a knife to her neck, but when she came around, she fought back and managed to lock herself in a cupboard. Upon his 2020 arrest Dominique admitted guilt on this cold case. The case is reminiscent of another 1991-unsolved rape-murder case of an estate agent, Sophia Norme. Dominique denied involvement in the murder and the case is being investigated.
Dominique claimed he had a terrible childhood where he was raped by different people. He claimed he was also forced to participate in a gang rape of a disabled woman. His father was tyrannical and fostered a young girl with a disability, abused her and made her his partner. He claimed Gisele saved him from this childhood.
Hidden motivation
Most of the co-defendants claimed that Dominique assured them that they were participating in a sex game of the couple. However, the handle of Pelicot’s on-line chatroom where he recruited the men was “without her consent” which should refute their claim that they were unaware that she had not given consent.
Perhaps the hidden motive in these cases is somaphilia, as reported by Dr Layet – a paraphilia in which an individual becomes sexually aroused by someone who is unconscious. To learn more about the psychological phenomena underlying the motivation of these men, please subscribe to my Patreon channel.
List of arrests
- Dominique Pelicot, 72, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
- Cyrille Delville, 54, butcher – 8 years imprisonment– abused and beaten by his father and placed into foster care.
- Lionel Rodriques, 44, supermarket worker – 8 years imprisonment -sexually abused between 12 – 13 years
- Jacques Cubeau, 72, – truck driver – 5 years imprisonment
- Jean-Pierre Marechal, 63, lorry driver – did not rape Gisele but drugged and raped his wife alongside Pelicot – 12 years imprisonment– victim of extreme violence and sexual abuse
- Joan Kawai, 26, soldier – 10 years imprisonment – street child, chronic cannabis and alcoholic
- Hughes Malago, 39, a tiler – 5 years imprisonment – suspected of drugging his girlfriend
- Husamettin Dogan, 43, caregiver to disabled son – 9 years imprisonment– children’s homes, drug dealer
- Fabien Sotton, 39, homeless, prior convictions of armed robbery, drug dealing, domestic violence and sexual assault of a minor – 11 years imprisonment– sexually abused by his father from age 2, foster care, violence and sexual abuse – psychiatric care at 16.
- Mathieu Dartus, 53, baker – 7 years imprisonment – violent stepfather
- Andy Rodriques, 37, farm worker – 6 years imprisonment – child alcoholic and cocaine user.
- Simone Mekenese, 43, builder, prior domestic violence – 9 years imprisonment – sexual abuse
- Thierry Postat, 61, refrigerator repairman, prior conviction possession child pornography – 12 years imprisonment
- Jerome Vilela, 46 – grocery store worker, confessed sex addict – 13 years imprisonment – bullied at school and forced to strip naked.
- Thierry Parisis, 54, builder – 8 years imprisonment – alcoholic mother and absent father.
- Adrien Longeron, 34, builder – prior convictions of three other rapes – 6 years imprisonment – sexually abused
- Jean Tirano, 52, roofer, 8 years imprisonment
- Redouan El Farihi, 55, anaesthesia nurse – 8 years imprisonment
- Patrick Aron, 60, factory worker, gay, married man – 6 years imprisonment
- Didier Sambuchi, 68, truck driver, gay – 5 years imprisonment – sexual abuse
- Karim Sebaoui, 40, computer expert, prior child abuse images, 10 years imprisonment
- Vincent Coullet, 42, carpenter, prior domestic violence -10 years imprisonment – alcoholic teenager
- Jean-Marc Leloup, 74, truck driver – 6 years imprisonment
- Dominique Davies, 45, truck driver, – 13 years imprisonment– foster care.
- Mohamed Rafaa, 70, discotheque worker, prior raped his daughter – 8 years imprisonment
- Ahmed Tbarik, 54, plumber – 8 years imprisonment
- Redouane Azougagh, 40, unemployed, prior domestic violence and burglary, death threats – 9 years imprisonment sexual abuse, cannabis smoking
- Mahdi Daoudi, 36, transport worker – 8 years imprisonment
- Cyril Beaubis, 47, truck driver – 9 years imprisonment
- Cyprien Culieras, 43 – 6 years imprisonment– foster homes
- Quentin Hennebert, 34, prison warden, prior drug dealer – 7 years imprisonment
- Gregory Serviol, 31, painter, prior drug dealer – 8 years imprisonment
- Florian Rocca, 32, driver, prior burglary – 7 years imprisonment
- Jean-Luc La, 46, mirror maker – 10 years imprisonment – refugee in France
- Patrice Nicolle, 55, electrician – 8 years imprisonment
- Abdelali Dallal, 47, canteen worker – 8 years imprisonment
- Romain VandeVelde, 63, truck driver, HIV positive – 15 years imprisonment – tortured by parents, sexual abuse
- Cedric Grassot, 50, software technician, possession child pornography, drugs to sedate his girlfriend – 12 years imprisonment– sexual abuse
- Hassan Ouamou, 30, priors theft, violence, drugs and possession of weapons. tried in absentia – 12 years imprisonment
- Cendric Venzin, 44, soldier restaurant manager – 9 years imprisonment
- Ludovick Blemeur, 39, warehouse worker – 7 years imprisonment – victim of sex offender Fabrice Motch – drugging and raping boys, murderer.
- Omar Douiri, 36, mechanic – 8 years imprisonment
- Paul Grovogui, 31, trainee pastor, prior theft, forgery, domestic violence – 12 years imprisonment – refugee
- Saifeddine Ghabi, 37, truck driver – 3 years imprisonment
- Charly Arbo, 30, vineyard worker, wanted to drug his mother – 13 years imprisonment
- Christian Lescole, 57, fire officer – 9 years imprisonment
- Nizar Hamida, 41, hairdresser, prior domestic violence, indecent assault – 10 years imprisonment
- Nicolas Francois, 42, journalist, gay – 8 years imprisonment
- Joseph Cocco, 69, sales manager – 3 years imprisonment
- Boris Moulin, 37, transport – 8 years imprisonment
- Philippe Leleu, 62, gardener – 5 years imprisonment – born of rape