Monster of Avignon’s spouse is applauded as she arrives in courtroom

The Monster of Avignon’s wife received a warm show of applause as she arrived at court today to hear the latest evidence in a rape trial that continues to rock France.

Gisele Pelicot, 71, sat at the courtroom in Avignon, southeast France, on Monday to hear from seven people accused of attacking her, and a witness who claimed she may too have been drugged and raped during the horrific campaign of abuse.

‘I don’t know if I was raped,’ Emilie O., a former partner of one of the men accused of raping Mrs Pelicot, told the court on Monday. ‘It’s terrible, I will always have doubts.’

Emilie O., 33, broke down in tears as she looked at Gisele Pelicot, who smiled back at her in a touching show of support. 

Dominique Pelicot, the former husband of Gisele, is accused of inviting dozens of men to sexually assault his wife while she was unconscious at their home in Mazan, France over a period of 10 years.

Mrs Pelicot, 71, was given the same thunderous greeting as she arrived and left the court on Monday.

As she walked out flanked by her legal team she smiled and waved to well wishers and her son David was also with her and returned the applause as the crowd shouted ‘Bravo’.

One woman said: ‘She is a symbol to all French women, she is so brave and the whole country is behind her.

‘She went through hell and her husband is to blame, he and all the others should go to jail for a long time.’

Demonstrations have taken place across the country to coincide with the trial, and murals have been painted in her honour.

Her departure from court came just minutes after the latest of the men accused of attacking her – Andy Rodriguez – offered his apologies to her.

Reading from a sheet of paper and dressed in a black T shirt and black trousers, he said: ‘I would like to say sorry to you and your family but I know that you will not accept my apology.’

As he read his excuses, he stared down at the piece of yellow paper in front of him while Mrs Pelicot looked away.

But when asked if he had any comment to make on the witness, Pelicot said: ‘He’s not telling the full story, he’s lying, he knew she was drugged.’

Extra security has been drafted in for the trial after one of the accused jostled a French TV crew as they filmed him, and it needed a lawyer to step in and calm the situation. 

Mr Rodriguez, 37, was among seven in court today accused of rape, alongside Joan Kwai, 26, Hugues Malago, 39, Husamettin Dogan, 43, Mathieu Dartus, 53, and Fabien Sotton, 39.

Judge Roger Arata ruled last week that the 50 accused will be divided up into four tranches and heard in groups of six to try and reduce numbers in court.

Mr Kwai, the first of the accused to give evidence today, has been described by prosecutors as a man with depressive tendencies.

He was born in French Guiana and moved to join his brother in Avignon when he was 16, before enlisting in the army.

He was in a relationship with a woman he met on the internet, but their time together was marked by ‘numerous’ conflicts and ‘extramarital relations’, the court heard. 

The father was only 23 when he was arrested at the army barracks where he was serving.

He first went to the house in November 2019, the day his daughter was born. 

He then went back another time, and admits to having set off for a third visit, which Dominique Pelicot cancelled at the last minute.

In front of the investigators, he first stated that he had not asked himself the question of whether Mrs Pelicot had consented.

Then, confronted with the photos, he admitted that she was unconscious and that it was a rape.

At the beginning of the trial, he said he ‘recognised the facts, but not the intention’.

Fourteen of the men on trial have admitted their part in the horrific case, while the rest deny the charges insisting, they were ‘duped as part of a plot’ by the couple.

Eighteen men are in custody and as usual since the case began Mrs Pelicot was greeted by warm applause as she entered the court building in Avignon, southern France.

Mr Pelicot has now admitted and testified that he drugged his then-wife into unconsciousness and inviting strangers into their home to rape her.

The 71-year-old has been on trial since the start of the month, along with 50 other men aged between 26 and 74, many of whom have denied the accusations.

Witness Emilie O., a former partner of one of the men accused, said at the trial today that she herself might have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Hugues M., her former companion.

‘I was manipulated and lived a lie,’ said Emilie O., who had lived with the man for five years.

‘I’m still questioning everything,’ she said without glancing at her former partner.

The 33-year-old said she had first met Hugues M. online and the two shared a passion for motorcycling.

She described Hugues M. as a respectful and considerate man but added that he was repeatedly unfaithful to her.

Emilie O. said he had needed ‘adrenaline that he only found by riding a motorbike and engaging in sexual relations.’

She began seeing her life with him in a different light when she learned in 2021 of the charges against her former partner.

Her life was turned upside down when she received a call from the Avignon police.

‘I was summoned and told that Hugues had raped a woman in October 2019, a few days before my birthday,’ she said.

‘I didn’t believe them, I was stunned, shocked, I asked to see the photo and then I realised that it wasn’t a nightmare,’ she said.

Hugues M. has been prosecuted for ‘attempted rape’, having failed to achieve penetration.

She began doubting their entire relationship and thinks she might have suffered the same treatment as Gisele Pelicot.

One night in 2019 she woke up to her partner attempting to penetrate her digitally, Emilie O. said. She launched a complaint, but it was dismissed for ‘lack of material evidence.’

She also experienced ‘dizziness’ between September 2019 and March 2020, but investigators did not detect any substances that might have affected her at the time.

Gisele Pelicot has testified that for years she had strange memory lapses and other health problems and thought she might have had Alzheimer’s.

The attacks took place in the couple’s rented home in the picturesque village of Mazan, 40 minutes away in the Provence countryside close to the iconic Mt Ventoux.

Pelicot was eventually arrested in September 2020 after security staff spotted him upskirting four women at a supermarket in Carpentras a few minutes from Mazan.

A search of his home revealed thousands of photos of his wife in a computer file marked ‘Abuse’ and prosecutors say he sedated his wife between 2011 and 2020 so that dozens of men could rape her.

Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed on Mrs Pelicot by 82 men of whom 51 including her husband have been identified.

Pelicot is said to have sedated his wife by putting Temesta into her evening meal.

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

The former electrician – who is sitting in a wheelchair surrounded by prison guards for the hearing – has also admitted one rape in 1999, after DBNA testing linked him to the case.

Officials expect the case to last until December.