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An individual was declared guilty on retrial of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her husband – and was given his jail term increased to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, underwent a appeal hearing this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

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

The evidence showed that Dogan, a family man, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, the husband, in an digital platform called “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was looking for men to come to his home to rape his wife after he had drugged her into a unconscious state.

We trust the panel will say loud and clear that in this society, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not delegated,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, Antoine Camus. “Consent is received directly and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Context

The husband, among the most severe sex offenders in modern French history, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his spouse and soliciting multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the single defendant to challenge his verdict. He was first sentenced to nine years in prison, a punishment raised on Thursday to a decade.

The lead state prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had argued he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any accountability”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had initially sent the husband graphic images and then driven an hour from his town in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to briefly provide testimony at the retrial, told the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep unbeknownst to her.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to assert he was blameless and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his actions had been permissible.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was presented with visual proof of Gisèle Pelicot’s limp body, sedated and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning Dogan engaged in violation repeatedly over a period of what investigators stated was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by suffocation. The prosecution said there was no question that she had been unconscious and had not given permission.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan informed the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He stated the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him to the home, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was influenced by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” Dogan told the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I had no desire to injure that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

Gisèle Pelicot, who was supported upon leaving court each day by onlookers gathered to support her, told Dogan in court: “You fail to comprehend. When will you acknowledge you violated me? It is unlawful to rape an incapacitated woman. At what point did I give you agreement? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she gave up her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

Sie, turning to the victim in court, said Dogan’s failure to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. The public is possibly in the midst of that, possibly driven by the societal understanding spurred by the exposure of your case.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of innocence showed how societal tolerance was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “It is imperative to change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor addressed the defendant: “As long as you reject it, it’s not just a person, it’s an whole unpleasant cultural framework that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of five moved to France, where his father worked as a concierge. The court heard that his father was aggressive and that the defendant began consuming marijuana aged 10. When he was 17 he was apprehended by authorities for selling narcotics and his father forced him to leave the family house. He served time in prison for trafficking in his young adulthood and had worked as a builder but had experienced periods of living on the streets.

He was married and had a son with special needs, who he was the main caregiver for, as his spouse worked in a educational cafeteria. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had regular intimate relations outside their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a mental health expert that each year he engaged in paid sex on his birthday. His lawyers informed the court he had joint inflammation caused by the pressure of the initial proceedings.