“I forgot everything”, “I didn’t understand anything”, “I was terrified”: accused of having raped Gisèle Pelicot, at the invitation of her husband, three co-defendants multiplied the baroque explanations Thursday in Avignon , to try to justify their actions, however refuting any intention of rape.
Before the Vaucluse criminal court, Jean T., a 52-year-old roofer, Simone M., 43 years old, a former alpine hunter, and Redouane E., 55 years old and a liberal nurse, spoke above all about themselves, until present yourself as a victim. Only the first apologizing to the victim, drugged by her husband then raped by him and dozens of strangers he recruited on the internet between 2011 and 2020.
Jean T., alias “Bill”, his pseudonym on the site Coco.fr where he met Dominique Pelicot, claims to have been drugged when the husband offered him a drink when he arrived at their marital home in Mazan (Vaucluse) .
Drugged, like Gisèle Pelicot. The only reason that can explain, according to him, his blackout on the events of September 21, 2018.
“I found myself in the car, I don’t know how I got there. Then I go home,” towards Lyon, a two and a half hour drive, he says.
Surprisingly, if Jean T. no longer remembers the facts, he can detail the procedure requested by the husband: park aside, enter the house through the courtyard, undress in the kitchen.
It was only when viewing the videos, after his arrest, that the accused became aware of the facts. In one of them, he gives a thumbs up in satisfaction towards the camera. In any case, “he never told me that his wife was asleep, drugged and that I was coming to rape her,” he insists.
“They all knew,” immediately refutes Dominique Pelicot, described as the “conductor” of the rapes against his wife.
PHOTO ZZIIGG, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Dominique Pelicot
But why didn’t he file a complaint if he believes he was drugged, asks an assessor? “It was a bad meeting. We forget everything and it’s over,” replies Jean T.
“I was a coward”
Aware that there was “something weird”, Simone M. also stayed, thinking that it was “a fantasy” of the couple.
“I didn’t understand anything, I was careless, I could have given him a disease or something,” he concedes, acknowledging that he was not wearing a condom, like most of the 50 co-defendants in this emblematic trial of chemical submission.
Neighbor of the Pelicot couple in Mazan, he had even met Gisèle Pelicot at the couple’s home, after making contact with her husband, on Coco.fr, but before sexually assaulting her. “I came to talk about cycling” with his husband, he explains.
“I could have denounced myself, I was a coward. I was afraid of losing everything, my family…” continues the forty-year-old, described by the personality investigator as “someone who is easily influenced”, “naive”, who “has difficulty considering malevolence among people. others “.
“I wanted to leave”
Redouane E. clearly posed himself as a “victim”: “In Mr. Pelicot’s situation of terror, yes, I am a victim. A situation of imminent danger is happening within me, […] as soon as I saw Pelicot, I wanted to leave.”
What he will not do, however, to “avoid frustrating this gentleman”: “When a sheep finds itself facing a wolf, we do not ask it why it does not run away,” he adds, provoking a mad, mocking laugh from Gisèle Pelicot.
One of the lawyers for the civil parties, Antoine Camus, then pointed out to him that he “did not look terrified” in the videos, particularly when he forced fellatio on the victim.
“I didn’t impose anything, […] I did it out of fear, I did it because the gentleman seemed to me to be a dangerous psychopath,” he maintains, under the stunned gaze of M.me Pelicot.
“At no time did he question or be afraid of anything. He didn’t rush off running,” Dominique Pelicot intervenes, in a strange role as referee.
A victim, Redouane E. would finally be a victim of the investigators, who would not have searched Gisèle Pelicot’s phone: “I ask that we be treated equally: there is no sacred word compared to a negligible word. We must all be subject to the same doubt.”
Mme Pelicot rolls his eyes.