Their father, Dominique Pelicot, is now considered one of the worst perverts this century has produced. Support for their mother, Gisèle Pelicot, who was raped by dozens of men while being drugged by her husband, has poured in from all over the world. They, meanwhile, have lost everything. David, the eldest son, Caroline, the middle daughter, and Florian, the youngest, testified before the criminal court in Avignon on Monday, November 18. Three voices. Three chasms of distress. Above all, three solitudes.

Everything about David Pelicot, 50, evokes his father. The same solid body, the broad neck, the hairline, right down to the inflection of the eyebrows. On November 2, 2020, after his sister and before his younger brother, he received a call from his mother, announcing that her father had handed her over to dozens of strangers to be raped. The three children took the same train the next morning to the police station in Carpentras, where their mother was waiting for them. Together, they emptied the family house in the nearby small town of Mazan, removing anything connected with their father. Gisèle Pelicot returned to Paris with them, "with just a suitcase and her dog," remembered David Pelicot. Back home, he collapsed in his wife's arms: "My father no longer exists."

In the course of the investigation, David Pelicot discovered that "this man," as he now refers to Dominique Pelicot, and to whom he had once been so close, had in his computer a nude photo of his wife, Céline, pregnant with their twin daughters, taken without her knowledge at their home. He also learned that "this man" had insistently asked his grandson, then aged 3, to "play doctor" (a complaint is pending). "But how could you do such a thing? If you have any humanity left in you, tell us the truth!" he shouted. "Nothing! Nothing! I did nothing to my children or my grandchildren!" thundered Dominique Pelicot. His son turned away. "This trial isn't only about Gisèle Pelicot. I hope you don't mind me saying that, Mom. It's about an entire family destroyed."

The youngest sibling, Florian Pelicot, took the stand next. Same slim face, same slender figure as his mother. "You said she was a saint. But you, you're the devil incarnate! Our family has completely exploded. What do we do now? Where's the instruction manual?" he hurled at the man in the dock. The investigation revealed that his father had also photographed Florian's wife, Aurore, naked in the bathroom, and made a photomontage with his penis on the young woman's body. The couple's relationship did not survive the revelations, and Aurore joined the suit as a plaintiff.

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