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A defendant was convicted on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot after she was drugged unconscious by her then-husband – and was given his jail term increased to a decade.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial 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 Pelicot in her bedroom in the south of France in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a family man, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform called “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a unconscious state.

“We hope the court will declare that in this nation, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that permission is personal, not transferred,” said the victim's attorney, her legal representative. “Agreement is obtained personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to 20 years in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and inviting multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of Mazan over a period of many years of their union.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to appeal against his conviction. He was originally sentenced to 9 years in prison, a penalty increased on Thursday to ten years.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve twelve years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Courtroom Details

Dogan had initially sent the husband graphic images and then traveled an hour from his village in the region to assault the victim, after informing his wife he was leaving, the evidence indicated.

The ex-husband, who was brought from isolation in prison to briefly provide testimony at the retrial, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he told to men by phone: “I seek someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her consent.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a wider discussion on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, stating that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the residence, his actions had been acceptable.

The jury in the higher court was displayed video evidence of Gisèle Pelicot’s limp body, unconscious and snoring in a deep sleep, while a grinning Dogan engaged in violation repeatedly over a duration of what investigators stated was three and a half hours. The presiding judge said she had been at danger of fatal outcome by suffocation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unconscious and had not agreed.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan told the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not assault. He stated the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was OK. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” the accused told the court. “I carried on because he convinced me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to hurt that individual.”

Survivor's Statement

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by onlookers assembled to back her, said to the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you raped me? It is unlawful to rape an unaware woman. At what point did I give you agreement? Not once.”

The victim, 72, became an international feminist hero after she gave up her right to privacy in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

State's Argument

Sie, turning to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s failure to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. Society is perhaps in the midst of that, maybe driven by the collective awareness brought by the revelation of your ordeal.”

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 “male domination”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

Sie said to Dogan: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a person, it’s an whole sordid social system that you are upholding.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five moved to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a concierge. The testimony revealed that his parent was abusive and that the defendant began using drugs at the age of ten. When Dogan was seventeen he was stopped by police for dealing drugs and his parent evicted him of home. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had experienced periods of living on the streets.

He was wed and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his wife worked in a school canteen. The court heard his wife did not know he had regular sexual encounters beyond their union. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his stressful life. The defendant had told a mental health expert that each year he engaged in commercial sex on his special day. His legal representatives stated to the court he had arthritis triggered by the anxiety of the first trial.