Daughter of man who drugged wife and 'invited men to rape her' calls him 'one of greatest sexual predators of all time'

6 September 2024, 14:25 | Updated: 6 September 2024, 15:17

The daughter of a man accused of drugging his wife and inviting men to rape her has said he is "one of greatest sexual predators of all time".

Dominique Pelicot, 71, is accused of organising for strangers - aged between 26 and 74 - to come to his home in the French village of Mazan, near Avignon, to rape his wife, Gisele Pelicot.

He is said to have filmed the assaults, which took place between 2011 and 2020.

Prosecutors said some 92 rapes took place, carried out by 72 men.

A total of 51 men are on trial and are being tried alongside Dominique Pelicot.

Now on the fifth day of the trial, the court heard daughter Caroline Darian, 46, was also herself secretly photographed naked by her father, the Mirror reports.

Her two sister-in-laws were also photographed while taking a bath at the same family home in Mazan, near Avignon.

Ms Darian is convinced that she was also routinely drugged so her father could defile her.

The photos taken of her were in a file named ‘Around my daughter, naked’ - apparently showing Ms Darian asleep.

A teary Ms Darian recalled seeing the two images for the first time, saying: "There was a woman who, apparently, was sleeping, lying on her side, with the light on. We could see her buttocks.

In the second image, the woman is in the same position, wearing the same underpants, with the same staging. Her buttocks were showing.

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"I did not recognise myself, but the police officer pointed out a brown spot on her cheek, like mine.

"There, I discovered myself and I understood that the man who was my father, in whom I had total confidence, who I thought had integrity, who respected his daughter, who was proud of her, who had always encouraged her, I discovered that in fact, my father had photographed me without my knowledge, naked."

She added: "How do you rebuild yourself from the ashes, when your father is undoubtedly one of the greatest sexual predators of recent years?"

Ms Darian was followed into the witnesses box by her sister-in-law, Céline Pélicot, a mother of three young children.

Ms Pélicot, also in her 40s, said police confirmed to her that there were naked photos of her in the bath, as well as similar images of another sister-in-law.

"Where will these photos be when I'm dead?’ asked Ms Pélicot.

"These degrading, humiliating shots were taken in the most intimate room."

Who did he [Dominique Pélicot] send them to? Where are they?

"Where will they be in five years, in 10 years, when I’m dead? Will my children one day come across them. Why did he [Dominique Pélicot] look at me like that?"

The trial started on Monday and is expected to run until December.

A security agent caught her husband taking photos of women's crotches in a supermarket, leading investigators to search Dominique Pelicot's phone and computer.

They found thousands of photographs and videos of men appearing to rape Ms Pelicot in their home while she appears to be unconscious.

'Unbearable'

Yesterday, Gisele Pelicot detailed to the court the horror of discovering that her former spouse systematically filmed the suspected rapes by dozens of men - storing thousands of images that police investigators later found.

"It's unbearable," she said. "I have so much to say that I don't always know where to start."

Shocked, she left her husband after police showed her some of the images.

"For me, everything collapses," she told the court. "These are scenes of barbarity, of rape."

She left with two suitcases, "all that was left for me of 50 years of life together."

Since then, she said, "I no longer have an identity... I don't know if I'll ever rebuild myself."

Prosecutors have claimed that the abuse started when the couple lived in Paris, and continued when they moved to Mazan, a village in south-east France.

Pelicot took part in the rapes and encouraged the other men using degrading language, prosecutors said. No money was involved in the arrangement.

The men accused of taking part in the mass rapes include a journalist, a forklift truck driver and a firefighter. They ran the gamut from single to married to divorced.

Because Dominique Pelicot videotaped the alleged rapes, police were able to track down - over a period of two years - a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.

Besides Pelicot, 50 other men, aged 22 to 70, are standing trial.

Several defendants are denying some of the accusations against them, alleging they were manipulated by Pelicot.

Over the next few months, the defendants will appear in small groups before a panel of five judges, with Pelicot scheduled to speak next week.

Psychologists, psychiatrists and computer experts will also give evidence.