Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex criminals of recent decades, “offered his wife to me in exchange for gardening”, but I “refused to go” because he had warned me that he was drugging her for put to sleep and for me “it was rape,” a witness said Tuesday at the court in Avignon, in the south of France.
Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband recruited 50 men on the Internet to come and rape her, after having drugged her, for ten years at the couple’s home. By accepting that the trial be public, Mme Pelicot, 71, has raised a powerful wave of support for victims of rape and sexual assault.
Jérôme B. 42 years old is a truck driver. In March 2020, he came into contact, on the “À son insu” show on the coco.fr website, since closed, with Mr. Pelicot, 71, tried alongside 50 co-defendants in this emblematic trial of chemical submission and violence against women, which began on September 2 before the Vaucluse criminal court.
The truck driver appears in the file because he was identified thanks to the hard drive on which Mr. Pelicot archived the photos and videos of the rapes he committed for 10 years on his wife, Gisèle, who was put to sleep by sleeping pills that he administered to her. without his knowledge, and those committed by the men he invited on the Internet to come and do the same.
But Jérôme B.’s file was empty, Jérôme B. ultimately never having gone to the Pelicot couple’s home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France.
On the witness stand, Jérôme B., against whom no charges were ultimately brought, explains: “He asks me to do gardening work and in exchange, he offers me his wife. I suggested it to him on a Saturday morning, he said no because he gave him a pill to put him to sleep. He adds that he drugs his wife and offers her to men very often. I tell him it’s rape and I don’t agree.”
Heard immediately, Cyril F., the second “empty file” in the case, explains that he also briefly exchanged with Dominique Pelicot on the Internet. “Until he told me that his wife would take pills and that she would probably be asleep when I arrived.”
“I thought it was a young person who was talking nonsense, I didn’t think at all that someone could drug his wife and I cut it short,” says this 48-year-old civil servant, who does not I don’t remember precisely if Dominique Pelicot told her that he administered the sleeping pills in secret or if Gisèle took them herself.
“In any case, he didn’t say to you “Come on, we’re going to participate in a rape”? », asks Me Nadia El Bouroumi, who defends an accused. “Oh no,” replied the witness.
Mostly prosecuted for aggravated rape, the 51 accused face up to 20 years of criminal imprisonment. Eighteen of them, including Dominique Pelicot, appear detained. Thirty-two others appear free, the last, on the run, being tried in absentia.
The trial is scheduled to last until December 20.