French Appeal Court Uphighers Sentence for Gisèle Pelicot Assailant

A defendant was declared guilty on retrial of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot after she was sedated by her spouse – and received his jail term increased to 10 years.

Appeal Trial

The defendant, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had appealed his first conviction last year, underwent a retrial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, accompanied by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her bedroom in the south of France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a family man, reached out to the victim's then husband, the husband, in an online chatroom named “without her knowledge”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to assault his wife once he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

“We hope the court will declare that in this country, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not transferred,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is secured directly and not through someone else from a husband.”

Background

The husband, a notorious sex offenders in recent French history, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his then wife and bringing in multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the town of the village of Mazan over a period of almost a decade of their union.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the sole individual to challenge his sentence. He was initially handed a term to 9 years in prison, a punishment raised on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had argued he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

The defendant had initially sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was leaving, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to briefly give evidence at the retrial, informed the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “drugged” and he told to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve sedated her without her consent.”

The trial became a key topic for a wider discussion on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to claim he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had invited him into the residence, his behavior had been justifiable.

The jury in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed visual proof of the victim's unresponsive form, unconscious and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator performed assault on several occasions over a period of what authorities reported was several hours. The judge said she had been at risk of death by asphyxiation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan informed the court the footage were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” the accused told the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to injure that individual.”

Survivor's Statement

The victim, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by onlookers gathered to stand with her, told Dogan in court: “You fail to comprehend. When will you acknowledge you assaulted me? It is unlawful to assault an incapacitated woman. How could I have give you consent? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an global icon after she gave up her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

State's Argument

The prosecutor, addressing the victim in court, said the defendant's failure to take accountability showed that: “The shame remains. The community is possibly in the course of that, maybe motivated by the societal understanding resulting from the exposure of your situation.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor said to the defendant: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a person, it’s an complete unpleasant societal structure that you are endorsing.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 came to the nation of France, where his father worked as a concierge. The testimony revealed that his parent was abusive and that the defendant began smoking cannabis aged ten. When he was seventeen he was stopped by police for selling narcotics and his parent forced him to leave of home. He spent time in prison for drug dealing in his early 20s and had worked as a builder but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was wed and had a son with a genetic condition, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The court heard his spouse did not know he had repeated sexual encounters outside their union. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his challenging existence. The defendant had stated to a evaluator that annually he sought commercial sex on his birthday. His lawyers stated to the court he had joint inflammation caused by the anxiety of the first trial.