"I'm a totally destroyed woman," said Gisèle Pelicot addressing the Vaucluse criminal court on Wednesday, October 23. She was delivering her witness statement in the mass rape trial centered on her husband, Dominique Pelicot, who repeatedly drugged her, raped her and invited fifty other men, aged between 36 and 74, recruited on the internet to rape her over the course of a decade while she was unconscious.
"I don't know how I'm going to rebuild myself, how I'm going to get over all this," explained Gisèle Pelicot, 71, adding that she had decided to remove the closed-door nature of the trial so that "all women who (are) victims of rape can say to themselves 'Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it.' I don't want them to feel ashamed anymore. The shame isn't ours to feel, it's theirs. (...) Above all, I'm expressing my will and determination to change this society."
Referring to her ex-husband, with whom she says she was "a happy and fulfilled woman" for "50 years together", Gisèle Pelicot said she "couldn't look at him." "I prepared myself for this trial, but I still haven't understood why. I'm trying to understand how this husband, who was the perfect man, could have come to this. How my life could have been turned upside down. How could you let these people into our home when you knew my aversion to swinging? For me, this betrayal is immeasurable."
The 50 men on trial with Dominique Pelicot, most of whom are charged with aggravated rape and face up to 20 years in prison, claim that they thought they were part of a swinger couple's fantasy, or that they didn't realize Gisèle Pelicot was unconscious.
The verdict of the trial, which will have an international impact, is expected around December 20.