The trial of Dominique Pelicot, a man who orchestrated a nine-year campaign of abuse by drugging his wife before inviting dozens of men to rape her, has disgusted and captivated France since it got underway on Monday.
In the past two days the court has heard how Mr Pelicot, 71, sent a torrent of depraved messages to willing participants in a sordid chatroom, telling those who accepted the invitation to abuse his wife: ‘You’re like me – you like rape mode.’
The court has also seen 50 men paraded into the dock, all of whom are on trial alongside the deranged mastermind for aggravated rape.
But Mr Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, has already provided in skin-crawling detail an extensive account of her father’s heinousness.
In her book entitled ‘And I Stopped Calling You Papa’, Darian – a pen name – explains across 176 pages the ways in which her father cruelly manipulated, abused and destroyed the physical and mental health of his wife Gisele before his dark deeds were eventually discovered in November 2020.
She writes how her father ‘dressed Maman like a low-rent prostitute’ and forbade many of the men he invited to the family home from wearing a condom as they abused her unconscious mother – including one who even tested positive for HIV.
And she explained how she was confronted with the reality that she too had been drugged by her own dad, dressed in underwear and left in the foetal position as he snapped away with a camera.
Darian fled the courtroom in tears on Tuesday after those images were discussed amid the trial.
Mr Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, has already provided in skin-crawling detail an extensive account of her father’s heinousness
Gisele Pelicot, 72, arrives at court in Avignon, France, on the morning of September 4
Dominique Pelicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over a decade until his arrest in 2020
Darian’s book, released in 2022 roughly a year and a half after her father’s crimes were revealed, charts the destruction of the Pelicot family when Gisele’s health was inexplicably falling apart.
Though some of the names were changed when the book was published, Darian gives a horrendous account of how her father manipulated her mother and drugged her with powerful tranquillisers.
Darian’s book, released in 2022 roughly a year and a half after her father’s crimes were revealed, charts the destruction of the Pelicot family when Gisele’s health was inexplicably falling apart
Excerpts of her writing have already been quoted by the judge in the Avignon courtroom this week.
Writing about one incident in the summer of 2018, Darian recalls how her brother went to visit their parents for an evening meal, only to see his mother practically falling asleep at the dinner table.
‘Only a few minutes after sitting down Maman was swaying in her chair as though she was drunk,’ Darian quotes him as saying.
‘Suddenly her whole body was drained of energy, like a rag doll.’
‘It happens. It’s better if I take her to bed,’ his father was reported as saying, feigning the role of a concerned husband acting in his wife’s best interests.
‘In reality the cocktail of drugs, poured into her glass of rosé, was beginning to take effect,’ Darian said.
She goes on to write that Mr Pelicot dared to suggest that his wife was having an affair when she complained of severe gynaecological issues and tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease.
Darian claimed that when Gisele told her husband she needed treatment for the unexplained illness, he asked her: ‘So, what are you doing with your days?’, accusing her of playing around while he was out playing boules or cycling in the foothills of Mont Ventoux.
She also explained how, despite inviting as many as 72 men into the family home to have their way with Gisele, her father never once asked for money or attempted to profit from the barbaric scheme.
‘Ultimate perversity… Father, who always had money problems, didn’t profit from Maman. He did it purely for his pleasure.’
Police found a file in Pelicot’s computer labelled ‘My Daughter Naked’. Pictured: Caroline Darian (left) at the courthouse during the trial of her father
Gisele Pelicot arrives at the courthouse during the trial of her husband Dominique on Monday, accused of drugging her for nearly ten years and inviting 50 strangers to rape her at their home in southern France
Dominique Pelicot is accused of orchestrating the rape ring
Pelicot was first arrested in September 2020 for taking photographs up the skirts of female supermarket shoppers.
But it was only when police searched the retirement chalet that he and Mme Pelicot shared in the pretty provencal village of Mazan that they learned the dark truth.
Investigators discovered more than 20,000 images and videos of Gisele being defiled by 72 men, 51 of whom, including Mr Pelicot, prosecutors were able to identify.
Her husband played the role of director and filed his films with tags such as ‘Her Rapists’, ‘Abuse’ and ‘My Slut’.
To ensure that Gisele had been unconscious and had not consented to sex, as many of the arrested attackers claimed, investigators were forced to confront her with the sickening videos.
Darian explained in her book how her mother broke the news to the family.
‘Your father is going to jail,’ Gisele said bluntly in a phone call.
‘Caro, it’s true… I had to look at some of the photos at the police station. I thought my heart would stop beating,’ Darian quoted her mother as saying.
When Darian and her brothers rushed to the police station to speak to investigators, they themselves were confronted with the horrific reality of how their father had treated Gisele.
She explained how they viewed a slew of photos, all snapped by Mr Pelicot, of their mother lying on her stomach, often in the foetal position, with a litany of strange men defiling her from behind.
When she asked one of the policemen whether her father had shown any remorse upon his arrest and subsequent confession, the officer reportedly said: ‘No. Your father simply thanked me for relieving him of a burden.’
‘Tell my father I’ll never forgive him and he’s ruined our lives,’ Darian said in response as she left the station.
Some of the 50 co-defendants accused of rape speak with a lawyer at the courthouse in the case that has shocked France on Monday
The town of Mazan, 20 miles from Avignon in southern France, where the victim and her husband lived and the attacks took place
The discovery of her father’s twisted crimes tore the Pelicot family apart and irrevocably altered the course of each member’s life, Darian said.
She has described the ordeal, in her book and various interviews with French media as a ‘family cataclysm’, ‘an earthquake’ and ‘an explosion’, adding that her once ‘boring but successful’ life had been blown apart.
‘(I had) a husband, son, home, and job I loved… You don’t know the value of boring until you’ve lost it,’ she wrote, adding how she suffered a mental breakdown and was briefly confined to a psychiatric ward in the days after her father’s deeds were revealed.
She was later forced to try and explain the scenario to her young child, who had spent many a happy day playing with his grandfather in the Pelicots’ lush green garden and family swimming pool.
Besides becoming an author, Darian went on to found an association called ‘Don’t Put Me To Sleep’ which aims to raise awareness around drug-induced crimes, including rape.
She also wrote how she has long been ‘haunted by the fear’ that her father may have invited men to rape her too, adding: ‘I’m convinced I was drugged, but he’ll never admit it.’
Her father has admitted to the manipulation and abuse of his wife, but has denied abusing Darian.
‘I never touched my daughter,’ he told prosecutors.
The shocking trial, which began on Monday, is set to end on December 20 with 51 people, including Mr Pelicot, facing aggravated rape charges.
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