Monster of Avignon responsible of letting 50 strangers rape spouse and will spend life behind bars

A man from France who drugged his wife and let men rape her has been found guilty.

On Thursday, Dominique Pélicot, 72, was convicted of abusing Gisèle Pelicot, and now faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

The crimes were carried out over almost a decade, with his conviction coming alongside 50 other defendants.

Dubbed the ‘Monster of Avignon’ – after the city in the south of France close to where his crimes took place – Pélicot, who had admitted all the charges against him, looked on impassively as his conviction for ‘aggravated rape’ was read out.

The retired electrician and estate agent’s abused wife was also in court, as she had been on every day of the three-and-a-half-month trial, after renouncing her legal right to anonymity.

A professional jury of five magistrates sitting at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon, took two days of deliberations to find Pélicot guilty of ‘aggravated rape’.

Other defendants listened to the verdict, as they prepared for their own fates to be read out.

The men came from all walks of life, and many of them were married fathers, aged from 26 to 73.

Gisèle Pélicot had told the court: “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.”

She has now become a feminist icon, for highlighting the often taboo subejects of domestic abuse and sexual violence against women.

Campaigners called for exemplary prison sentences to bring about a turning point in the fight against rape culture and the use of easily availble drugs to subdue victims.

Prosecutor Laure Chabaud said he should get a maximum life sentence – 20 years in France – she had asked for 10 to 18 years for all the others.

She said: “Twenty years between the four walls of a prison – it’s both a lot and not enough”.

Dominique Pélicot himself has been on remand since 2020, when he was arrested for taking illicit photos up women’s skirts in a supermaket near the family home in Mazan.

When police searched his devices, they found more than 20,000 obscene photos and videos on his computer drives.

They were in folders titled ‘sex abuse’, ‘her rapists’ and ‘night alone’, and provided ample evidence against him.

Pélicot himself had told the couirt: “I know I’m going to get 20 years, I’ve lost everything. I’ll die alone like a dog,” ading “I’m a rapist and so are all the other accused”.

Years of work from police saw 50 out of 72 suspected abusers found. Ms Pélicot’s lawyers fought for the shocking images to be shown in open court, to prove that she was clearly unconscious throughout.

Ms Pélicot said she was fighting for “all those people around the world, women and men, who are victims of sexual violence,” adding: “Look around you – you are not alone.”

In turn her husband – whom she divorced in the summer – admitted that he hid prescription sleeping pills in food and drink, knocking Ms Pélicot out for hours on end.

He told police he started drugging his wife in 2011, just before they left their home in the Paris suburbs to retire to Mazan, the small town in Provence.

Beyond Dominique Pélicot, 14 other men admitted the charges against them, but others pleaded not guilty, saying they had no idea they were involved in rapes.

Many argued that Dominique Pélicot offering consensual sex at what was clearly his family home met his wife had consented too.

Pélicot’s own daughter, Caroline Darian, 46, had described him as ‘one of the greatest sexual predators’ of all time.

She told the court that he secretely photographed her in the nude, along with her two sister-in-laws.

This was at the same family home in Mazan, some 20 miles from Avignon, which Mr Pélicot had invited the men to after contacting them online.

Ms Darian was convinced that – like her mother – she was routinely drugged so that her father could defile her, although her father denied this.

In a separate case, Mr Pélicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991.

He has admitted one attempted rape in 1999, after DNA testing proved a case against him.