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A man was declared guilty on appeal of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was drugged unconscious by her husband – and was given his prison sentence raised to a decade.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, 44, an unemployed builder, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A panel of five men and four women, joined by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her bedroom in southern France in the morning 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 digital platform named “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to come to his home to assault his wife once he had sedated her into a deep sleep.

We expect the jury will affirm that in this nation, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that permission is individual, not transferred,” stated the victim's lawyer, her legal representative. “Agreement is received directly and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Case History

The ex-husband, one of the worst sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his spouse and bringing in dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of almost a decade of their union.

Numerous other individuals were found convicted in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to appeal against his verdict. He was first handed a term to 9 years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to 10 years.

The lead state prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve twelve years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then traveled an hour from his village in the region to rape the victim, after informing his wife he was stepping out, the evidence indicated.

The ex-husband, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily give evidence at the hearing, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her knowledge.”

The trial became a focus point for a larger conversation on sexual violence norms in society as Dogan continued to say he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the room, his actions had been acceptable.

The jury in the Nîmes appeals court was shown video evidence of the victim's unconscious figure, unconscious and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a smiling the perpetrator engaged in violation on several occasions over a duration of what police said was several hours. The judge said she had been at peril of death by suffocation. The prosecution said there was no question that she had been incapacitated and had not consented.

Accused's Testimony

The defendant informed the court the videos were simply “sexual encounters” and disputed it was violation. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was influenced by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan told the court. “I proceeded because he persuaded me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I never wanted to harm that individual.”

Pelicot's Words

The survivor, who was applauded upon departing the trial each day by onlookers assembled to back her, addressed the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you violated me? It is illegal to rape an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you permission? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, became an international feminist hero after she relinquished her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

Sie, speaking to the victim in court, said the defendant's refusal to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. The public is perhaps in the course of that, maybe propelled by the societal understanding spurred by the exposure of your situation.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor addressed Dogan: “For as much as you deny it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete sordid cultural framework that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

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 father was violent and that Dogan began using drugs aged ten. When Dogan was 17 he was stopped by authorities for selling narcotics and his father kicked him out of home. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his early 20s and had worked as a laborer but had undergone periods of living on the streets.

He was wed and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a educational cafeteria. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had repeated intimate relations outside their union. His defence said this was his method of dealing with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had informed a evaluator that once a year he looked for commercial sex on his special day. His lawyers told the court he had arthritis caused by the stress of the original case.