He had “offered his wife for gardening”, says a witness at the Mazan rape trial

Illustration: Benoit Peyrucq Agence France-Presse Jérôme B., against whom no charges were ultimately brought, was on the witness stand in this case.

Agence France-Presse

Published yesterday at 4:05 p.m.

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Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex criminals of recent decades, “offered me his wife in exchange for gardening,” but I “refused to go” because he had warned me that he was drugging her to make her fall asleep and for me “it was rape,” a witness testified Tuesday at the Avignon court in the south of France.

Gisèle Pelicot's ex-husband recruited 50 men online to come and rape her, after drugging her, for ten years at the couple's home. By agreeing to have the trial be public, Ms. Pelicot, 71, has sparked a powerful wave of support for victims of rape and sexual assault.

Jérôme B., 42, is a truck driver. In March 2020, he made contact, on the “À son insu” chat room on the website coco.fr, which has since been closed, with Mr. Pelicot, 71, who is being tried alongside 50 co-defendants in this emblematic trial of chemical submission and violence against women, which began on September 2 before the Vaucluse criminal court.

The truck driver is in the case because he was identified thanks to the hard drive on which Mr. Pelicot archived the photos and videos of the rapes he had committed for 10 years on his wife, Gisèle, who was asleep from sleeping pills that he administered to her without her knowledge, and those committed by the men he invited on the Internet to come and do the same.

But Jérôme B.'s file was empty, Jérôme B. having ultimately never gone to the Pelicot couple's home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France.

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In the witness box, Jérôme B., against whom no charges were ultimately brought, explained: “He asked me to do some gardening work and in exchange, he offered me his wife. I offered it to him on a Saturday morning, he said no because he gave him a pill to make him fall asleep. He added that he drugged his wife and offered her to men very often. I told him that it was rape and that I did not agree.”

Heard immediately afterwards, Cyril F., the second “empty file” in the case, explained that he had also briefly exchanged with Dominique Pelicot on the Internet. “Until he told me that his wife would take pills and that she would probably be asleep when I arrived.”

“I thought he was a young man talking nonsense, I didn't think at all that someone could drug his wife and I cut him short,” says this 48-year-old civil servant, who does not remember precisely whether Dominique Pelicot told him that he was administering the sleeping pills in secret or whether Gisèle was taking them herself.

“In any case, he didn't tell you 'Come on, we're going to take part in a rape' ?,” asks Nadia El Bouroumi, who is defending an accused. “Oh no,” replies the witness.

Mostly prosecuted for aggravated rape, the 51 accused face up to 20 years of criminal imprisonment. Eighteen of them, including Dominique Pelicot, appear in custody. Thirty-two others appear free, the last one, on the run, being tried in absentia.

The trial is scheduled to last until December 20.