Taking the stand in France’s largest ever rape trial, Patrice N, 55, an electrician from the southern city of Carpentras, mentioned he was a “jovial” man and a enjoyable dad who as soon as educated youth soccer groups and had a “great respect for women”.
He denied the fees of rape, claiming rape had by no means been his intention. “To my mind, it was a game,” he instructed the courtroom.
Patrice N is considered one of 51 males on trial for the alleged rape and assault of Gisèle Pelicot, a former logistics supervisor, who has change into a feminist hero for insisting the trial needs to be held in public.
For a nine-year interval from 2011 to 2020, Gisèle Pelicot was unknowingly sedated and raped by her former husband, Dominique Pelicot, who crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medicine into her meals and invited males to rape her at their house within the picturesque village of Mazan in Provence.
Gisèle Pelicot instructed the courtroom this week that she felt “destroyed” however was pushed by “the determination to change society” and expose “rape culture”.
After dozens of accused males have testified that they didn’t suppose what occurred was rape, her legal professionals mentioned the courtroom hearings have uncovered a “profound problem” in society’s attitudes to sexual violence.
Regardless of video proof in courtroom displaying Gisèle Pelicot in an unconscious state, loud night breathing loudly, Patrice N claimed he had not observed that she was sedated on the Monday evening in February 2020 when he drove 20 minutes to the {couples}’ house after he he had been involved with Dominique Pelicot on-line.
Dominique Pelicot ushered Patrice N into the bed room, the place he stayed for about one hour with the lights on. It was solely on the finish of the go to, when he mentioned, “Your wife looks like she’s really asleep”, that Dominique Pelicot mentioned he gave his spouse “pills”.
Patrice N mentioned he requested if this occurred typically, to which Dominique Pelicot replied that after drugging his spouse, he would additionally take her to motorway laybys and “hand her to men”. Patrice N mentioned: “I told him he was sick, I walked round the bed and left straight away … He didn’t even text me to see if I got home OK.”
One of many judges requested Patrice N: “You heard him say he delivered his drugged wife to men in laybys, but you did nothing to help her, you didn’t report it?”
He mentioned: “I didn’t want to waste my time at the police station. I’m a humble neighbourhood electrician. If I went to the police and said she’s unconscious, who would have believed me?”
Gisèle Pelicot, watched from her seat in courtroom, and shook her head.
From the dock, Dominique Pelicot instructed the courtroom that he didn’t hand his then spouse to males at roadsides, however had as soon as drugged and raped her himself in a motorway layby on the way in which again from their daughter’s vacation house.
Patrice N, like a number of different males accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot, was supported in courtroom by various ladies who knew him who mentioned they didn’t suppose him able to rape. A longtime feminine buddy, who labored as an schooling professional, instructed the courtroom that Patrice N had all the time been a “teddy bear”, “wasn’t even a skirt-chaser” and wasn’t the sort to rape. A care-worker, who 16 months in the past grew to become Patrice N’s girlfriend regardless of figuring out he was charged with rape within the Pelicot case, mentioned: “He treats me like a princess.”
Three accused males in courtroom this week did take the uncommon step of admitting rape, saying they knew Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged and was unconscious.
Abdelali D, 47, a former canteen employee who had suffered a stroke since his arrest, mentioned he went to the Pelicots’ house twice and raped Gisèle Pelicot when she was in a comatose state. The primary time, one January evening in 2018, he had requested his then girlfriend to drive him to the Pelicots’ village and wait an hour for him within the automobile. She instructed the courtroom she had pushed him as a result of she was fearful about him driving drunk. She thought he was assembly a pair for a sexual encounter, however had not sought particulars. “I didn’t want to know,” she mentioned. She described Abdelali D as somebody who “drank morning, noon and night”.
Jean-Luc L, 46, a mirror-maker, admitted raping Gisèle Pelicot on two events in 2018 and 2019 whereas she was unconscious. He had at first thought that as a result of her husband had consented for her, “it wasn’t against the law”. He instructed a psychologist after his arrest that the definition of rape was as a substitute one thing that “happens in the street” within the fashion of “if you don’t want it, I’ll hit you”. However in courtroom, he admitted raping Gisèle Pelicot in her personal bed room.
The courtroom heard Jean-Luc L had fled Vietnam by boat along with his mom as a baby and had lived in refugee camps earlier than coming to France. His second spouse, of 10 years, and the mom of his two youngest kids, was additionally Vietnamese. By an interpreter, she instructed the courtroom that as a result of her personal mom was unwell on the time, she had not wished intercourse together with her husband. Requested how she felt when she discovered of the rape costs towards her husband, she mentioned in a tender voice: “I was very sad, in shock. But I think because I refused him all the time, as a man he had to look elsewhere.”
Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, instructed the courtroom: “You thought that because you refused a sexual relationship, because your mother was very ill and your mind was on other things, you thought you had a role in what happened, and Gisèle Pelicot could not help reacting. For her, it’s not because you refused a sexual relationship that it led to this happening …”
“There is never an obligation to have sexual relations with your husband. Do you understand that? … Gisèle Pelicot says you have no responsibility whatsoever in the fact that your husband decided to do what he did.”
The courtroom heard that Dominique Pelicot had advised he additionally drug Jean-Luc L’s spouse so the 2 males might rape her. “I told him I’d think about it just to please him,” mentioned Jean-Luc L. “But sex wasn’t really her thing.”
Quentin H, 34, was a jail guard in Avignon who had offered MDMA medication on the web site the place Dominique Pelicot sought males. He admitted raping Gisèle Pelicot in her mattress in November 2019. He mentioned he realised “something wasn’t right”, and Gisèle Pelicot wasn’t transferring. Requested why, as a jail warden, he didn’t report this to police, he mentioned: “I was ashamed, I wanted to get it out of my head.”
The trial continues till 20 December.
