Dominique Pelicot, the French man on trial for drugging his spouse and alluring strangers to rape her, has a cut up character attributable to the impact of childhood trauma, his defence lawyer has argued.
In her summing up on Wednesday, Béatrice Zavarro instructed the courtroom in Avignon there have been “two Dominiques”, one a person apparently dedicated to his household and the opposite with a “sure perversity”.
For Gisèle Pelicot, Zavarro stated her husband had a ultimate phrase: “I’ve betrayed you with the obscene … with out you I’m nothing. Choose me by the very best occasions of our life. I do know that someday we’ll meet once more someplace else, and I hope we’ll have the ability to discuss all this once more.”
Zavarro urged Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a former logistics supervisor, to “take note this primary Dominique … the person he was, who liked you profoundly. I depart you to replicate on that.”
Zavarro stated she had “the utmost respect” for Gisèle Pelicot and her “dignity”, as properly for as her household, notably her daughter Caroline and two daughters-in-law. All had been photographed by Dominique Pelicot.
As Zavarro learn a poem she stated Pelicot had written to his spouse from jail, Gisèle Pelicot, on the fitting aspect of the courtroom, stared straight forward. On the opposite aspect, behind the glass dock, Dominique Pelicot bowed his head and wiped away tears.
Pelicot has admitted drugging his spouse over virtually a decade between 2011 and 2020 and alluring greater than 70 strangers to rape and sexually abuse her at their residence within the village of Mazan, close to Carpentras within the south of France. The general public prosecutor has requested he be sentenced to the utmost time period of 20 years.
Within the dock with him are 50 of the boys who’re accused of raping or sexually abusing Gisèle Pelicot whereas she was unconscious. Her husband had laced her wine and meals with anti-anxiety treatment and sleeping tablets, rendering her virtually comatose. The vast majority of the boys deny the cost of aggravated rape as a part of an organised group.
Zavarro argued on Wednesday that the boys who contacted Dominique Pelicot knew exactly what he was doing. She denied he had been “manipulative, violent or threatening” in direction of them or had drugged them, as a number of claimed.
She dismissed the argument superior by lots of the accused that that they had not identified, had not “meant” to rape Gisèle Pelicot or had failed to know that what they did was rape.
“Did they’ve to listen to the phrase ‘rape’ to know that this lady was unconscious and put to sleep?” she requested. “Was he [Pelicot] threatening? No. Was he violent? No. Was he insulting? No. Is he answerable for the acts of anybody else? No.”
Pelicot was arrested in November 2020 after being caught filming up the skirts of ladies in a grocery store close to the couple’s residence. Detectives found 20,000 movies and pictures of his spouse’s abuse on cellphone, computer systems and exhausting drives.
Gisèle Pelicot has been hailed as a feminist icon after waiving her proper to anonymity, insisting on the listening to being held in public and permitting the movies to be proven in open courtroom. The case has thrown a highlight on the rape and abuse of ladies by their companions and the growing use of medication to help sexual assault.
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On the 53rd day of the trial, Zavarro stated she felt as if she had change into “the satan’s advocate” on taking over Pelicot’s defence. She recounted assembly him in April 2021 and studying of his violent childhood. He has stated he witnessed and heard his father abuse his mom whereas her palms had been tied behind her again, and has additionally stated he was raped aged 9 in hospital and witnessed a gang-rape aged 14.
When he met Gisèle, aged 19, it was “love at first sight”, Zavarro stated. The couple had three kids: David, Caroline and Florian.
“David stated the kids lacked for nothing. Caroline, regardless of her comprehensible anger, additionally objectively stated he was caring, beneficiant human, and Mme Pelicot stated he was a great man, a great husband, a great father and a great grandfather. She couldn’t reproach Dominique Pelicot for something at the moment,” she stated.
“He was very a lot in love together with his spouse. He instructed me: ‘I used to be nothing earlier than her, I used to be one thing else along with her and now I’ve change into nothing once more.’ It’s for this different Dominique that I plead immediately.”
In her summing up, which included quotes from Freud, John Betjeman and the psychologist Boris Cyrulnik, Zavarro stated: “Maybe the worst enemy of Dominique Pelicot is Dominique Pelicot.”
The general public prosecutor has requested for sentences of between 10 and 18 years for the boys accused of aggravated rape. Legal professionals for the defence will deal with the courtroom over the subsequent three weeks. The verdicts are anticipated by 20 December.
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