Gisèle Pelicot's lawyers know their lives changed at the historic trial: 'We live with it. It's merged with our existence'
NewsHow does one return to normal life after experiencing a historic trial with worldwide repercussions? Stéphane Babonneau and Antoine Camus were the lawyers for Gisèle Pelicot, who was raped by her husband and 50 other men. After the verdict in December, they returned to standard business. But they are still feeling the shockwaves of this extraordinary trial.
One day, he was delivering closing arguments under the eyes of the whole world and history; two months later, he was defending a surgeon who defrauded social security, under the half-closed eyes of three quidams in a court in Coutances, Normandy, population 8,000. One day, he was working to change society; another, to obtain the acquittal of a secondary character in a bogus insurance contract case in an empty room in the Paris Court of Appeal. For his first court hearings back in action, Stéphane Babonneau, 42, one of Gisèle Pelicot's two lawyers, was a long way from southern Avignon and the mass rape trial held there.
Meanwhile, Pelicot's second lawyer, 46-year-old Antoine Camus, a few weeks after delivering his arguments on the need to change society's mindset concerning the notion, was opposing a discovery measure under article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure in a dispute between partners at the head of a real estate portfolio management company (if we understood correctly). The trial in Avignon was the first rape trial for this specialist in business litigation, who only marginally does ordinary criminal law. Since the landmark case, he has returned to his routine: corporate executives, governance wars, high-stakes financial matters. With no supportive crowds at the entrance to the courtroom and no wall cameras at the exit.
Camus was an acquaintance of an acquaintance of Pelicot, who was looking for a lawyer at the time. He immediately accepted the case, which was too heavy for him to handle alone, and took on board his friend Babonneau, who had more experience at criminal trial proceedings. For almost four months, the two colleagues were at the center of the legal world. Now they're back to being just black robes among black robes, each in their own corner – a strange sight, given how inseparable the duo seemed. They've both been plunged seamlessly back into the daily grind of courtrooms and the obscure cases that keep their law firms running, on Boulevard Saint-Germain for Babonneau, on the Champs-Elysées for Camus.
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