A mum who was allegedly raped by multiple strangers after being drugged by her own husband today faced them all in a packed court room.
Gisèle Pélicot, a 72-year-old French woman, waived her legal right to anonymity on Monday at the opening of the trial of Dominique Pélicot, 71, and 51 other men.
All are accused of aggravated rape in a trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon, which is due to last for four months. Twenty of them, including Pélicot, are in custody, while the others remain on bail.
Asked to confirm his name and address at the start of proceedings, Pélicot said: “My home is prison, you know it”. Ms Pélicot, a mother-of-three, was supported by her adult children as she stood in the public gallery, listening to evidence.
The family home, in nearby Mazan, allegedly became a crime scene over almost a decade, when streams of men were invited to attack Ms Pélicot. Her husband is said to have used an online platform called coco.fr to contact them between 2011 and 2020.
Which implies that it only stopped because of the pandemic
I think the article said it was only found out because police happened across the files during an investigation of something else (namely, the husband trying to take upskirt photos of women in public).