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The daughter of a pensioner who allegedly drugged his wife so she could be raped nearly 100 times by 72 men over the space of 10 years has told the court she fears she too was drugged.
During the second day of the trial of Dominique Pélicot, 71, his daughter, Caroline Darian, left the courtroom after the judge mentioned her father’s computer had nude photographs of her.
She told Le Parisien: ‘I’m convinced I was drugged, but he’ll never admit it.’
When Presiding Judge Roger Arata began reading out details of the pictures, Ms Darian – who was in the public gallery – collapsed in tears, and had to leave the court building for around 20 minutes.
Ms Darian, now in her 40s, has already written a book about the case called ‘And I stopped calling you Daddy’, which the Judge quoted from in court.
She also said she was ‘haunted’ by the fear that her father may have also allowed men to rape her after a picture of her in ‘someone else’s underwear’ was found on his computer.
The photographs were found on Dominique’s computer in a folder called ‘around my daughter, naked’.
Dominque is alleged to have used an online forum to recruit strangers to visit their home, according to police who found chats on a site called coco.fr, which they have since shut down.
His wife – Gisele, 72 – was allegedly drugged and raped more than 100 times, the court heard.
Gisele has ‘no recollection’ of the ten years of abuse, which she discovered in 2020 after police found hundreds of images of her on her husband’s phone.
She was seen unconscious, mostly in a foetal position, in the pictures and videos alleged to show dozens of rapes at the couple’s home in Mazan, near Avignon, France.
They had moved to the village from Paris, two years after the abuse is believed to have started in 2011.
Ms Pélicot, a frail mother-of-three, was supported by her two adult sons as she remained in the public gallery on Tuesday, the second day of the trial.
Police found the 71-year-old’s stash of images after a security guard caught him secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.
The 71-year-old, who claims he was raped by a male nurse when he was nine, is ready to face ‘his family and his wife’, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro said.
For Gisele, however, this trial will be a ‘horrible ordeal’ as it is the ‘first time she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years’, her lawyer said.
Gisele could have opted for a trial behind closed doors, but ‘that’s what her attackers would have wanted’, the court heard.
Alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a journalist, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers.
In a separate case, Mr Pélicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991.
He has admitted one attempted rape in 1999, after DNA testing proved a case against him.
The Avignon aggravated rape case continues, and is due to last until December 21.
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