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“Even if they are not discovering anything new as they know the case, it was particularly gruelling this morning.”
The wife’s lawyers said she was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse that went on for a decade, mainly at their home in Mazan, Provence.
She has begun divorce proceedings.
The case, which has appalled France, came to light by chance when Pélicot was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020.
When questioned, he said he had “acted on urges” that he had “not been able to control”.
The defendants include a fireman, truck driver, councillor, IT worker in a bank, prison guard, nurse and a journalist.
Darian told Le Parisien this week that she was haunted by the fear her father may have invited some of the men to rape her, after a picture of her in someone else’s underwear was found on his computer.
“I’m convinced I was drugged, but he’ll never admit it,” she said.
Pélicot sat at the other end of the courtroom, directly opposite his wife on the second day of the trial. He was dressed in a grey T-shirt and listened intently to the proceedings. The couple’s two sons were also present. One stared at the father fixedly.
At first impassive, Pélicot appeared to fight back tears and bit his lips in front of his ex-wife and their three children.
The judge said Pélicot had told investigators about “three out of 10 men” refused his invitation after he explained in online chats what he was doing to his wife.
He cited some of the curious responses given by the men during police questioning.
One said he thought nothing illegal or non-consensual had occurred because of the presence of cameras at the couple’s home. “It couldn’t have been anything bad because it was all filmed,” he is cited as saying.
Another said that “as long as the husband was present, there was no rape”.
A third claimed he thought it was all part of “a couple’s game”, the court heard.
Other defendants claim to have been under the sway of Pélicot, who had acted like a “very controlling conductor”.
“I did what he asked but I didn’t know why,” claimed one.
But the judge cited the examining magistrate who stated that the defendants “could not have been unaware, in view of the victim’s inert state, that she was not in a normal state of consciousness.
“The victim was in a state closer to a coma than to sleep,” he added, citing expert reports.
The case continues.
The Telegraph, London
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