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A defendant was declared guilty on appeal of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was sedated by her husband – and has had his prison sentence raised to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his first conviction last year, faced a new trial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A panel of nine jurors, joined by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her home in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that the accused, a family man, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform named “without her consent”, where the husband was looking for men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had sedated her into a comatose state.

We expect the panel will declare that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is personal, not transferred,” stated the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is secured personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Context

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sex offenders in recent French history, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for incapacitating his wife at the time and bringing in multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of many years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and Dogan was the only man to contest his sentence. He was first handed a term to nine years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to a decade.

The state's attorney, Dominique Sie, had argued he should serve twelve years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any responsibility”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had initially sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then traveled an hour from his town in the region to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was stepping out, the court heard.

The ex-husband, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily provide testimony at the hearing, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to assault my wife after I’ve sedated her unbeknownst to her.”

The proceedings became a key topic for a wider discussion on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not committed rape, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his actions had been acceptable.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed visual proof of the victim's unresponsive form, comatose and snoring in a comatose state, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation multiple times over a timeframe of what authorities reported was several hours. The court official said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by choking. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not agreed.

Accused's Testimony

Dogan informed the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and denied it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He told the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had brought him to the residence, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” the accused told the court. “I proceeded because he persuaded me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a closing remarks to the court, Dogan said: “I never wanted to hurt that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

The survivor, who was applauded upon departing the trial each day by crowds present to support her, told the defendant in court: “You fail to comprehend. When are you going to recognise you assaulted me? It is illegal to rape an incapacitated woman. When did I ever give you consent? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

Sie, turning to the victim in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take blame showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The public is possibly in the midst of that, maybe propelled by the collective awareness brought by the revelation of your ordeal.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a ethos of permission.”

Sie said to the defendant: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an whole sordid cultural framework that you are endorsing.”

Personal History

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The testimony revealed that his parent was violent and that the defendant began consuming marijuana at the age of ten. When he was seventeen he was apprehended by authorities for dealing drugs and his parent evicted him of home. He served time in prison for drug dealing in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had experienced periods of homelessness.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the primary guardian for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The court heard his wife did not know he had regular intimate relations beyond their union. His defence said this was his method of dealing with his difficult circumstances. The defendant had informed a evaluator that each year he looked for transactional encounters on his special day. His attorneys informed the court he had arthritis caused by the stress of the initial proceedings.