For me, everything was falling apart. Everything I had built up over 50 years. She said she had barely recognised herself in the images, saying she was motionless. She told a panel of five judges that she had only found the courage to watch the footage in May this year. He then enlisted men to rape and sexually abuse her, contacting them via an online chatroom, where members discussed preferences for non-consenting partners. The accused men recruited by her husband were instructed to avoid smelling of any kind of fragrance or cigarette smoke to avoid alerting his wife and to leave if she moved so much as an arm, investigators said.
Fifty men are on trial for allegedly taking part in the rape and abuse. She told the court that without knowing she was being regularly drugged at night, she had begun to have difficulties remembering things and concentrating and even feared taking the train to see her adult children in case she missed her stop. She said she had lost weight and at one point had difficulty controlling her arm.
She said medical tests during the police investigation showed she had been infected with several sexually transmitted diseases. She said in the hours after being told by police what had happened to her she felt like dying. The 50 men on trial with her husband include a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, soldier, firefighter and civil servant, many of whom lived around Mazan, a town of about 6, inhabitants.
The men were aged between 26 and 73 at the time of their arrests. Detectives were unable to identify and trace more than 30 other men who were recorded. Gisele Pelicot said she had recognised only one of her alleged rapists, a man who had come to discuss cycling with her husband at their home.
The trial in Avignon is expected to last four months. Dominique Pelicot, 71, and the 50 other defendants face 20 years in prison if convicted of aggravated rape. This article is more than 4 months old. Read more. View image in fullscreen. Man accused of enlisting strangers to rape drugged wife goes on trial in France.
