The 76-year-old ex-doctor, older brother of the accused, gives “no credence” to his younger brother’s statements and strives to describe a “fair” father, when Dominique Pelicot depicts him as violent and incestuous.
He is knowledgeable about family history. At the age of 76, facing the Vaucluse criminal court, Joël Pelicot prides himself on having “an excellent memory” and shows it, throughout the hearing, Tuesday October 8. Called as a witness, Dominique Pelicot’s older brother unfolds his story with great ease, scratching his younger brother whenever he has the chance.
“When Dominique was born in 1952, my sister Ginette was 12 years old, my brother André was 9 years old and I was 4 years old,” explains this retired general practitioner, slightly graying brown hair and a dark suit. It seeks to describe “happy days”notably in a house located near a castle in Haute-Marne. “Dominique spent his time playing ball in the forest next door“, relates Joël Pelicot, nostalgic when he talks about the television bought by his parents at the time. “We were watching ‘Man of the 20th Century’ [un jeu télévisé de l’époque], but especially the football matches, which Dominique followed with his father”details the retiree.
This father, Denis Pelicot, died in 2004, was portrayed as “violent, jealous, selfish and lazy” by Dominique Pelicot during his personality survey, with “a very rigid temperament, which made any dialogue with him impossible”. This is not the image that Joël Pelicot has of it. The eldest concedes “relatively frequent corporal punishment” of the patriarch, but assures that it was “common currency” at that time. For him, their father “was someone who was fair”, decides the former doctor.
Beyond the physical violence, Dominique Pelicot accuses his father of having raped a mentally deficient little girl, named Nicole, adopted by the family when she was a child. Joël Pelicot beats around the bush, retraces the journey of the little girl, who “lived with 21 host families in five years, before arriving home”, and who finally “learned to write, count, read”. He ends up admitting, as one detail among others in his story, that their father did indeed rape her, “from 1987”according to his observations.
Ginette, the half-sister of the siblings, from a previous union of the mother, reported before the court that she had herself been subjected to advances from her stepfather, “which precipitated his departure from home” has the age of 17, recalls the general advocate, questioning Joël Pelicot on this subject. “Ginette has always had a grudge against Denis: she never accepted that he replaced her father”, he analyzes, politely brushing aside his statements.
Likewise, he does not believe that Dominique Pelicot was raped by a nurse at the age of 8, as the accused claimed. He was then hospitalized after receiving a stone in the face, thrown by Joël. This one says: “[Dominique] returned home the next day at noon. Dennis [le père] told him: ‘we ordered a Formica kitchen table and chairs and since you have to pay for the medical care for your stupidity, you will only have a stool’.”
Little Dominique then begins to cry, “and said that he had been touched.” “Our parents contacted the hospital community who told them: ‘it’s surprising: it was a nurse that evening’.” Joël Pelicot drives the point home, affirming that his brother never spoke to him again about this rape afterwards, proof, according to him, that it did not happen. “That’s not true!”says Dominique Pelicot from his box.
“Why do you not give any credence to what your brother can relate to the traumatic events he suffered in childhood and adolescence?”asks the general advocate of Joël Pelicot. “Because Dominique has fed his family lies for more than thirty years. He lies when necessary and depending on the circumstances,” the witness decides. These statements support the arguments of the defense, which tirelessly claims that most of the accused were manipulated by Dominique Pelicot.
Since the revelation of the facts in October 2020, Joël Pelicot says he has asked himself “lots of questions” to find out what could have caused “the seesaw” criminal of his brother. For him, the answers are not to be found in their childhood, but rather in “the penetration of pornography into his daily life”.
“How could the boy I knew, loved, and for a moment adored when he played football, become this thing, this author of monstrosities?”
Joel Pelicotbefore the Vaucluse criminal court
After almost two hours of hearing, Dominique Pelicot speaks in his box, and lets his anger escape. “I would like to address the man I once knew, with whom we had a happy childhood, but also a very unhappy childhood, the effects of which he hides well”he declares in a loud voice. His brother does not look at him for a single moment and turns pointedly towards the courtyard.
The accused focuses in particular on the episode of his hospitalization as a child. “I came home, I didn’t tell anyone, the parents never knew what happened! I couldn’t tell anyone…”, he said while crying. Before pulling himself together. “I accuse my brother of having covered up my father for years about incest towards Nicole”he declares solemnly. And to conclude: “The first one who ruined the family was our father. I take responsibility for it and I will pay. But our father never paid.”