Dominique Pélicot, who has today admitted to drugging his wife and allowing multiple strangers to rape her , left his daughter suffering severe mental distress after she learned of his 'Chamber of Horrors'. Pélicot , 71, stands accused of having drugged and raped his wife Gisèle Pélicot, 72, at least 200 times - before inviting more than 50 men into their marital bedroom to attack her without her consent or knowledge. Today, the French grandfather spoke from the dock in Vaucluse Criminal Court, Avignon, confessing: "I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom.
" When given permission to respond to her ex-husband's opening words, Gisèle - who has bravely waived her rights to anonymity - responded: "For me, it is difficult to hear it. For fifty years, I lived with a man who I would never have imagined for a single second that he could do these acts. I had complete confidence in this man.
" Gisèle, whose adult children have accompanied her during the trial that has shocked the world, was not the only person who was deceived by Pélicot's reportedly 'lovely' facade. The Pélicots lived in a pleasant family home in the idyllic Medieval town of Mazan in the beautiful Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, known for its fragrant lavender fields and thriving green vineyards. However, behind closed doors of their seemingly cheerful home, lay a true 'Chamber of Horrors', according to the devastated daughter whose happy memories have now been shattered.
.. Pélicot, who now stands accused of aggravated rape in a trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court, in Avignon, Province, alongside 51 other men, had allegedly been slipping Temesta - a powerful anxiolytic drug - into Gisèle's evening meal, waiting until she was unconscious before inviting abusers into their bedroom.
All the while, the Pélicots were regarded as 'lovely people' by their neighbours, who remember how the former teenage sweethearts would receive regular visits from their three adult children at their spacious home. The retired couple, who had been married for 50 years, would host parties around their swimming pool, and maintained a well-kept garden. And when the alleged crimes were uncovered in 2020 after Mr Pélicot was arrested for taking 'upskirting' shots of supermarket customers, the couple's daughter, Caroline Darian, 46, had no idea of the alleged atrocity.
Ms Darian, who documented her family's ordeal in her memoir And I Stopped Calling You Daddy, wrote of how she learned that her father was going to prison on Monday, November 2, 2020. Her mother was the one to tell her over a shocking phone call, and the revelations that followed would cause a 'family cataclysm'. In her book, as seen by The Telegraph , Caroline writes: "Ultimate perversity.
Father, who always had money problems, didn't profit from Maman. He did it purely for his pleasure." As she left the police station, Caroline is said to have told the officer in charge: "Tell my father I'll never forgive him and he's ruined our lives.
" During the first week of the trial, the court heard that after the incident at a Carpentras supermarket, officers looked through Pélicot's phone and home equipment and uncovered multiple videos of Gisèle being raped. Commissioner Jérémie Bosse Platière stated that there were hundreds of photos and explicit videos which showed 'Gisèle Pélicot asleep and in the presence of other individuals taking part in acts of a sexual nature'. Prosecutors say that dozens of men - of which only 51 of whom could be identified - raped Gisèle 92 times at their home in Southern France between the years 2011 and 2020, without her knowledge.
Pélicot allegedly connected with his accomplices via a chilling online forum called 'Without Her Knowing', where participants would discuss performing sex acts on unwitting partners and filming it. Taking the stand, Ms Pélicot described the moment her daughter, Caroline Darian, found out about the allegations that her father had drugged her mother before organising the rapes. She said: "When I told my daughter, she screamed like a wild beast.
I will never forget this. When I told my sons about this, I don't think they really understood, they were withdrawn and didn't react much. I think they were in a state of shock.
They said 'don't say such silly things'. That evening, the children rang all the time saying don't disappear – they were worried I might die." Facing her husband in court, Ms Pélicot said: "When you look at me you think she's strong, this woman, but inside she's a heap of ruins.
The façade is strong, inside it's not the same." Pledging to revert to her maiden name and divorce her husband after the trial, she occasionally stared straight at Mr Pélicot, who looked ahead impassively. "I was sacrificed by my husband for these obscenities," she said.
"I was a woman drugged and abused. It was like I was dead. I was treated like a piece of meat.
" In November 2020, Ms Darian and her brothers reportedly returned to their parents' home - which she now regards as a 'chamber of horrors' - to help their mother clear it out. She writes in her book: "Coming back into the house, with his smell, was unbearable." The ordeal is far from over for the family, however, as the court heard this week that Ms Darian was herself secretly photographed in the nude by her father.
Mr Pélicot is said to have kept the images in a computer file entitled 'Around my daughter, naked'. And Ms Darian is convinced that – like her mother – she was routinely drugged so that her father could defile her. When Presiding Judge Roger Arata began reading out details of the pictures, Ms Darian – who was in the public gallery – collapsed in tears, and had to leave the court building for around 20 minutes.
Ms Darian described her father as 'one of the greatest sexual predators of all time'. She tearfully recalled seeing the two images for the first time, saying: "There was a woman who, apparently, was sleeping, lying on her side, with the light on. We could see her buttocks.
In the second photo, this woman is in the same position, wearing the same underpants, with the same staging. Her buttocks were showing. "I did not recognise myself, but the police officer pointed out a brown spot on her cheek, like mine.
There, I discovered myself and I understood that the man who was my father, in whom I had total confidence, who I thought had integrity, who respected his daughter, who was proud of her, who had always encouraged her, I discovered that in fact, my father had photographed me without my knowledge, naked." The trial at Vaucluse Criminal Court is due to last around four months, up until December 21, with 20 of the accused in custody. If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.
rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999 Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.
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