🔗 Share this article

An individual was convicted on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot after she was sedated by her husband – and was given his prison sentence increased to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a appeal hearing this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of four women and five men, accompanied by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her residence in the south of France in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a family man, made contact with Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to come to his home to rape his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

We expect the court will affirm that in this nation, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not given by another,” said the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is obtained personally and not by proxy from a husband.”

Context

Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year for drugging his then wife and inviting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a period of almost a decade of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to appeal against his conviction. He was originally sentenced to 9 years in prison, a sentence enhanced on Thursday to ten years.

The state's attorney, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve twelve years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any accountability”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent Dominique Pelicot graphic images and then driven an hour from his residence in the region to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was stepping out, the court heard.

The ex-husband, who was brought from isolation in prison to temporarily testify at the hearing, told the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “drugged” and he said to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a key topic for a broader debate on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to claim he was blameless and had not engaged in violation, contending that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the room, his conduct had been permissible.

The panel in the higher court was shown recorded footage of Gisèle Pelicot’s unresponsive form, comatose and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape multiple times over a duration of what investigators stated was several hours. The court official said she had been at risk of death by suffocation. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan stated to the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and denied it was assault. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not assault. He stated the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” Dogan told the court. “I proceeded because he persuaded me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I had no desire to harm that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

The survivor, who was applauded upon leaving court each day by crowds assembled to support her, told Dogan in court: “You fail to comprehend. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It is unlawful to assault an unconscious woman. At what point did I give you agreement? Never.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an international feminist hero after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, turning to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's failure to take blame showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. Society is possibly in the midst of that, maybe motivated by the societal understanding brought by the exposure of your case.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how societal tolerance was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “male domination”. He said: “Now we must change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

The prosecutor told Dogan: “As long as you deny it, it’s not just a person, it’s an entire sordid societal structure that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 came to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The evidence indicated that his father was violent and that the defendant began smoking cannabis at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was stopped by authorities for dealing drugs and his father forced him to leave the family house. He served time in prison for narcotics offenses in his early 20s and had worked as a laborer but had faced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a son with special needs, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had regular extramarital activities outside their union. His legal team said this was his strategy for managing with his challenging existence. The defendant had told a evaluator that once a year he sought transactional encounters on his birthday. His attorneys told the court he had a medical condition resulting from the pressure of the first trial.