Gisèle Pélicot’s continued fight for justice: A year on
- GINA
- Nov 3
- 3 min read
A year after the harrowing Pélicot affair hit headlines and shocked the world, Gisèle Pélicot returned to court in Nimes, France. Accompanied by her youngest son, Florian, Gisèle chose to waive her right to anonymity for a second time in this four-day trial.
One of the worst sex-offenders of our times, Dominique Pélicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year when police discovered footage, recorded over a 10-year period, showing him and dozens of other men raping his then wife Gisèle, whom he had drugged into a comatose state. Mr. Pélicot had approached over 100 different men online, inviting them to come round to his family home in the South of France and take part in this brutal and non-consensual exploitation of his wife’s body.
But the focus this time was not on Mr. Pélicot but on Husamettin Dogan.
44-year-old Husamettin Dogan, an unemployed builder and father of one is one of the 51 men charged last year in Avignon for playing a part in this abhorrent abuse. Of these men, Dogan is the only one to have launched an appeal, his argument being that he could be found guilty of rape because he did not realise that Gisèle Pélicot would be unconscious.
The appeals court in Nimes were shown some of the explicit footage of the abuse, found last year on Mr. Pélicot’s computer. The footage shows Gisèle Pelicot’s body, limp and unconscious whilst a smiling Dogan committed rape repeatedly over a reported timeframe of three and a half hours.
Dogan accepted he had committed a ‘sexual’ act but said: “I never knew she was drugged.” And maintained that it wasn’t rape because Mr. Pélicot had asked him to come.
Mr. Pélicot, who appeared briefly at the appeal trial to provide evidence said that Dogan was fully aware of his wife’s drugged state, telling the court he said to all recruited men on the phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”
Gisèle Pélicot, who was not obliged to attend proceedings, met Dogan’s excuses in court with a steadfast clarity: “You haven’t understood. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It’s a crime to rape an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you consent? Never.”
She added: “Take responsibility for your actions and stop hiding behind your cowardice.”
Dogan’s appeal was not only rejected, but his sentence of 9 years increased to 10.
Dominique Sié, the lead state prosecutor in this case said he should serve 12 years because he “absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”. Sié highlighted how this appeal trial reflects the systemic rape culture inherent to French society (arguably to society in general). Referring to Gisèle’s now infamous refrain “Change must change sides” he said: “Shame has not yet changed sides… there needs to be an evolution for you, and for society, from rape culture to a culture of consent.’
Influenced in part by this case, French law has been forced to rethink its understanding of rape and sexual assault. Last week the French National Assembly and Senate passed a bill redefining rape to explicitly include the need for consent (a provision included in UK law since 2023). According to the ecologist and MP Marie-Charlotte Garin, who was instrumental in advancing this legislation, this reform represents a “feminist victory”. She says: “the Pélicot case has made space for a continuing cultural revolution”.
This verdict offers hope for widespread societal change in the way our societies perceive and react to sexual violence and abuse. However, change will not happen overnight. The French and UK criminal justice systems continuously fail to provide justice to those who have been subjected to this violence. Crucially, access to justice should not hinge on a survivor’s capacity to endure the re-traumatisation that often comes with a lengthy trail process.
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