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A defendant has been found guilty on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and received his jail term raised to ten years.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, 44, an unemployed builder, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a retrial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of nine jurors, joined by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of raping the victim in her home in the south of France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a family man, made contact with Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom called “without her knowledge”, where the husband was seeking men to come to his home to assault his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

We trust the panel will say loud and clear that in this nation, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not transferred,” stated the victim's lawyer, her legal representative. “Agreement is secured personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Context

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his then wife and inviting numerous individuals to sexually assault her in her home in the town of the village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to appeal against his verdict. He was first handed a term to nine years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to ten years.

The lead state prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had argued he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot sexually explicit photos and then driven an hour from his residence in Provence to rape the victim, after informing his wife he was going out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to briefly testify at the retrial, informed the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I seek someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a central issue for a wider discussion on sexual violence norms in society as Dogan continued to assert he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his conduct had been justifiable.

The panel in the higher court was presented with recorded footage of the victim's unresponsive form, comatose and snoring in a deep sleep, while a smiling the perpetrator committed rape on several occasions over a duration of what authorities reported was three and a half hours. The presiding judge said she had been at risk of fatal outcome by choking. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan stated to the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was rape. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not rape. He stated the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I tried to halt,” Dogan stated to the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a closing remarks to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to harm that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by onlookers present to stand with her, told the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you acknowledge you raped me? It is illegal to rape an incapacitated woman. When did I ever give you permission? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Legal Commentary

The prosecutor, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's refusal to take blame showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is perhaps in the process of that, possibly driven by the public consciousness brought by the revelation of your situation.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of innocence showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “archaic” forms of “male domination”. He said: “We need to change the culture of violence to a society based on agreement.”

The prosecutor told the defendant: “While you reject it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an complete unpleasant societal structure that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five relocated to France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that Dogan began using drugs at the age of 10. When he was seventeen he was stopped by police for dealing drugs and his father forced him to leave the residence. He served time in prison for trafficking in his twenties and had worked as a laborer but had experienced periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a son with a genetic condition, who he was the primary guardian for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The testimony revealed his wife did not know he had repeated sexual encounters beyond their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his difficult circumstances. The defendant had told a evaluator that once a year he sought paid sex on his special day. His legal representatives told the court he had joint inflammation caused by the pressure of the first trial.