French woman drugged by her husband to be raped by other men

Photo: Benoit Peyrucq Agence France-Presse This courtroom sketch shows defendant Dominique P. (R) on the second day of his trial on Tuesday.

David Courbet – Agence France-Presse in Avignon

Published at 6:26 p.m.

• Europe

“An unbearable ordeal”: the children of Gisèle P., drugged and then raped by her husband and dozens of strangers he recruited on the Internet, for 10 years, at the marital home in France, came out shaken on Tuesday, after the long and raw account of the facts, detailed to the point of nausea.

The main victim, now aged 72, remained stoic, showing no emotion, on the second day of the hearing of this extraordinary trial, where 51 defendants are being tried before the criminal court of Vaucluse, in Avignon.

Fifty-one men, aged 26 to 74, prosecuted for aggravated rape for the most part, for which they face up to 20 years of criminal imprisonment.

Throughout the presentation of the facts by the presiding judge, Roger Arata, who summarised a 31-volume case file in a cold, monotonous tone, Dominique P., wearing a grey T-shirt, remained with a vague look in his eyes. Sometimes speaking with his lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro, sitting on the other side of the glass wall of the prisoners' box.

Then, with a simple “yes”, the 71-year-old retiree, presented by the prosecution as the “conductor” of the rapes committed against his wife, admitted his responsibility.

Questioned in turn, only 14 of the 48 other defendants present — one, on the run, will be tried in absentia; another was absent for medical reasons on Tuesday — also admitted to the facts alleged. Three apologized to the victim.

Sitting next to Gisèle P., the couple's three children had a harder time holding back their emotions during this long and emotionally charged day. The couple has been in the process of divorcing since the facts were revealed.

On two occasions, Caroline Darian (her pen name for the book she published in 2022, And I stopped calling you dad) had to leave the courtroom, sobbing and shaking. Supported by her brothers, she broke down in particular when the president of the court mentioned photomontages in which she appeared naked. The photos had been found on her father's computer, in a file entitled “Around my daughter, naked”.

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For the children, “it's an immense pain”, said their lawyer, Me Antoine Camus, during a suspension of the hearing. “Caroline had to be taken out, it was absolutely unbearable. Even if they didn't discover anything, if everyone knew the file, it was particularly trying this [Tuesday] morning, of course, but necessary. »

Regards

On Monday, Gisèle P. and her children had in fact opposed the request for a closed hearing by the prosecution and part of the defense, demanding public debates, so that “the shame changes sides.”

Before joining the civil parties’ bench, after her second exit, Ms. Darian stopped for a moment in front of the box of the 18 accused detainees. She looked at them, but none of them met her gaze. Nor did her father, whom she now calls her “progenitor.” “Caroline insisted on holding his gaze for a very long time, to see how far he was capable of going in his denials,” explained Me Camus.

Once the hearing was adjourned, Tuesday afternoon, standing against the wall of the detainees’ box, Dominique P. seemed to want to catch his family members’ eyes. Without success. None of them deigned to cross his own.

In total, only 18 of the 51 accused, including the husband, appeared in custody, the others being free.

These accused detainees are those who came to rape Gisèle P. several times, up to six times for some, or who are being prosecuted for the most serious rapes. Or those with a serious past, with previous convictions for domestic violence or rape, sometimes against children, suffering from drug or alcohol addictions, or having an attraction to pedophile or even zoophilic practices.

Apart from the main accused, only 50 of the 72 attackers of Gisèle P. identified by investigators based on the photos and videos taken by her husband have been identified and found, following an investigation started almost by chance, on September 12, 2020.

That day, Dominique P. was arrested by a security guard at a supermarket in Carpentras, in the south of France, after filming customers up their skirts. When questioned, he explained that he had “acted on impulses” that he “could not control.”

But, during several successive searches, investigators came across thousands of photos and videos in which his wife, unconscious and inert, was raped by strangers. The facts began in July 2011, when the couple still lived in the Paris region, then continued from March 2013 to October 2020, after they moved to Mazan, a charming village near Mont Ventoux.

Heard on Wednesday, investigators should specify in particular the manner in which the accused were apprehended. The following day, Thursday, the civil parties will be given the floor for the first time, in particular Gisèle P.