Doses of Temesta were prepared in advance: three 2.5-milligram tablets crushed and stored in "a little pipette." All Dominique Pelicot had to do was slip the powder "into a morning coffee," "into a purée" or "into an ice cream," which he would bring to his wife after dinner, in front of the television. "After that, you had to wait at least two hours."

On Friday, October 18, Pelicot revealed some of the details of the chemical submission process inflicted on his wife over many years, and once again found himself at the center of the trial. The presiding judge of the Vaucluse criminal court, Roger Arata, wanted to take a break from the marathon of questioning that the court had been conducting for five weeks so that Dominique Pelicot could answer a number of questions that had been piling up over the past days.

In particular, Arata wanted to understand how the 71-year-old defendant had managed to get his wife to ingest the drug for so long – he is being questioned about at least 200 rapes in 10 years – without arousing her suspicions, in a house that was "not a 50-room castle." "I was the one doing the cooking, she was often in the next room. She had her doubts at times but, for the most part, it was relatively easy."

It was also "very easy, from the moment she was in a state of deep sleep," to prepare Gisèle Pelicot's body, in "a mixture of desire and unease," to remove her pajamas and dress her "according to everyone's desires." The effect of the medication lasted "five hours," so once the guest had left, "there was plenty of time to put things back in place." "Wipes, a simple wash" on his wife before dressing her again, laundry – "eco mode, Liquid Soupline [fabric softener], 30 minutes" – and for the outfits, "stored in the garage, in a bag."

'The following days were hard'

"How did you manage to deal with the next day, to live normally with this woman you say you love more than anything, and that you had prepared and offered?" the judge wanted to know again. Dominique Pelicot didn't elaborate: "The days after were hard, she was not in good shape."

The essential question of this second interrogation concerned the main dividing line between Pelicot and the other 50 defendants, the central issue of the case: their knowledge of the situation when they arrived in the Pelicot's home in Mazan, southern France. The severity of the sentences handed down could partly depend on this factor.

- "Do you think you were consistent, exhaustive, precise in the indications you gave to all the co-defendants, and systematically specified that Mrs Pelicot would be sedated by means of a drug you would have administered to her?" asked Arata.

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