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A defendant was convicted on retrial of raping Gisele Pelicot after she was sedated by her husband – and was given his jail term increased to 10 years.

Higher Court Case

The defendant, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of five men and four women, accompanied by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her home in Provence in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that Dogan, a family man, reached out to the victim's spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom called “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was seeking men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a unconscious state.

We expect the panel will declare that in this country, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not given by another,” declared the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is received directly and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for sedating his then wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the single defendant to contest his sentence. He was first handed a term to 9 years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to a decade.

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

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the evidence indicated.

The ex-husband, who was brought from isolation in prison to temporarily give evidence at the appeal trial, informed the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “sedated” 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 larger conversation on rape culture in society as Dogan continued to claim he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, arguing that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the bedroom, his actions had been justifiable.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed video evidence of the victim's limp body, sedated and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator performed assault repeatedly over a timeframe of what authorities reported was several hours. The judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by choking. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not consented.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant stated to the court the recordings were simply “sexual encounters” and denied it was violation. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not assault. He told the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” Dogan told the court. “I carried on because he persuaded me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to harm that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by supporters present to back her, addressed the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you raped me? It is illegal to rape an unconscious woman. How could I have give you permission? Never.”

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

State's Argument

Sie, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s failure to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. Society is perhaps in the course of that, maybe driven by the collective awareness resulting from the revelation of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of innocence showed how rape culture was still prevalent in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

Sie addressed Dogan: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an entire unpleasant social system that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

Dogan 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 building manager. The court heard that his father was aggressive and that the defendant began smoking cannabis aged ten. When Dogan was 17 he was caught by authorities for selling narcotics and his parent forced him to leave the residence. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his twenties 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 evidence showed his wife did not know he had repeated extramarital activities beyond their marriage. His defence said this was his way of coping with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a evaluator that each year he sought commercial sex on his birthday. His legal representatives stated to the court he had a medical condition triggered by the anxiety of the initial proceedings.