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An individual has been found guilty on higher court review of raping Gisèle Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her husband – and was given his jail term extended to ten years.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his first conviction last year, faced a retrial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, joined by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of raping Pelicot in her residence in the south of France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The evidence showed that Dogan, a family man, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, the husband, in an internet forum called “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was seeking men to visit his house to assault his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a unconscious state.

We expect the court will say loud and clear that in this nation, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that consent is individual, not delegated,” stated Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is received personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sexual predators in recent French history, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and inviting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their union.

Numerous other individuals were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to challenge his verdict. He was initially handed a term to 9 years in prison, a penalty enhanced on Thursday to a decade.

The state's attorney, Dominique Sie, had contended he should serve 12 years, because he “completely denies to take any accountability”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his town in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was stepping out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was transported from isolation in prison to temporarily give evidence at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he told to men by phone: “I seek someone to abuse my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a key topic for a wider discussion on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to claim he was blameless and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the room, his conduct had been acceptable.

The jury in the higher court was shown recorded footage of the victim's unconscious figure, sedated and breathing heavily in a comatose state, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape multiple times over a period of what police said was several hours. The judge said she had been at danger of death by asphyxiation. The state prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not consented.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan informed the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and rejected it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He told the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by the husband. “I tried to halt,” Dogan stated to the court. “I carried on because he persuaded me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I never wanted to harm that lady.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was supported upon leaving court each day by crowds gathered to support her, said to Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you violated me? It is illegal to rape an incapacitated woman. At what point did I give you consent? Never.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an global icon after she waived her right to privacy in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

Sie, addressing the victim in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take accountability showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is perhaps in the process of that, possibly driven by the societal understanding spurred by the exposure of your situation.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent 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.”

Sie told the defendant: “For as much as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete unpleasant societal structure that you are supporting.”

Defendant's Background

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of five moved to France, where his parent worked as a building manager. The testimony revealed that his parent was violent and that the defendant began using drugs at the age of ten. When he was seventeen he was stopped by authorities for drug trafficking and his parent kicked him out the family house. He spent time in prison for trafficking in his young adulthood and had worked as a construction worker but had undergone periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the main caregiver for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The court heard his wife did not know he had frequent intimate relations beyond their marriage. His defence said this was his way of coping with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had informed a mental health expert that each year he looked for transactional encounters on his special day. His legal representatives informed the court he had a medical condition caused by the stress of the first trial.