Monster of Avignon's daughter says chemical castration could be 'part of solution' for sex offenders
27 May 2025, 20:54 | Updated: 27 May 2025, 23:49
Chemical castration could be "one part of the solution" when there is "nothing else you can do" for sex offenders, the daughter of the prolific French sexual abuser Dominique Pelicot.
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Caroline Darian's father Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December for the decade-long abuse of his wife, while 50 other men were also convicted for raping or sexually assaulting her.
Her mother, Gisele Pelicot, waived her right to anonymity to allowing the trial to be held in public so that “shame will change sides”.
Now, her daughter has said that the UK government's plans to consider mandatory chemical castration for sex offenders may be "one part of the solution" for predators like her father.
"It's probably one part of the solution because you know when you're at that level of crime, that level of criminal, there is nothing else you can do," she said.
Read more: Ex-wife of ‘Monster of Avignon’ criticised by daughter for abandoning her as fellow victim
She added that men like her father could "never" be rehabilitated when asked if this was possible.
It comes as the Government is further exploring whether to make chemical castration mandatory for certain offenders as it scrambles to reduce overcrowding in the UK's prisons system.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the Commons last week: “The review has recommended we continue a pilot of so-called medication to manage problematic sexual arousal.
“I will go further with a national rollout, beginning in two regions covering 20 prisons. And I am exploring whether mandating the approach is possible.
"Of course, it is vital that this approach is taken alongside psychological interventions that target other causes of offending, like asserting power and control."
Former justice secretary David Gauke has told LBC that chemical castration "could play a role" in reducing the risks posed by sex offenders.
His independent review of sentencing in England and Wales says a pilot scheme should be expanded.
Mr Gauke said it would be "voluntary" - and isn't being touted as a "solution" - but that some offenders are "very keen" to have injections to help curb their offending.
In March, Ms Darian released her book ‘So That We May Remember’, where she argues her mother, 72, let her down during the three-month trial held last autumn in Avignon, southern France.
She describes her mother’s reluctance to believe her as a “point of no return” in their relationship, saying: “It is an abandonment too many.”
Darian, 46, describes her father as a sexual predator and claims he is a serial rapist who left a trail of victims in cases so far unsolved by the police, which he denies.
The book outlines a deep rift with her mother over two photos that Dominique Pelicot took of Darian asleep in underwear that she told the court was not her own.
Darian says she believes the photographs were taken after she had been drugged, like her mother.
“These two photographs knocked me over … I am sure [there] are others. I know that I was sedated and abused by my father, but I cannot prove it,” she writes in the book.
