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A defendant was declared guilty on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot following she was sedated by her husband – and has had his incarceration period raised to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced 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 raping the victim in her residence in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a married father, connected with the victim's spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom called “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a comatose state.

We expect the jury will say loud and clear that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that consent is individual, not given by another,” stated the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is obtained personally and not through someone else from a husband.”

Context

The husband, among the most severe sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to 20 years in prison last year for incapacitating his wife at the time and inviting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the community of Mazan over a period of many years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to contest his conviction. He was initially given a sentence to nine years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to 10 years.

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

Testimony and Proof

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his town in Provence to rape the victim, after informing his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to briefly testify at the retrial, informed the court that the accused had understood his wife had been “drugged” and he communicated to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve sedated her without her knowledge.”

The trial became a focus point for a broader debate on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to claim he was not guilty and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the residence, his behavior had been permissible.

The jury in the higher court was displayed video evidence of the victim's limp body, comatose and snoring in a deep sleep, while a smiling Dogan engaged in violation repeatedly over a period of what authorities reported was several hours. The court official said she had been at danger of death by suffocation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not consented.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan told the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and denied it was assault. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not assault. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said the victim's husband had brought him to the home, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” Dogan told the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to injure that individual.”

Pelicot's Words

The victim, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by crowds assembled to back her, said to the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you acknowledge you assaulted me? It’s a crime to rape an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you permission? 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: “The shame should shift.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

The prosecutor, turning to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's refusal to take blame showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is possibly in the midst of that, possibly motivated by the collective awareness spurred by the revelation of your situation.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of innocence showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “archaic” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

Sie said to Dogan: “For as much as you deny it, it’s not just a person, it’s an complete sordid societal structure that you are upholding.”

Personal History

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five came to the nation of France, where his father worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was abusive and that Dogan began using drugs at the age of 10. When he was 17 he was caught by authorities for dealing drugs and his parent evicted him the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his young adulthood and had worked as a laborer but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had repeated sexual encounters outside their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. Dogan had informed a court psychologist that annually he sought paid sex on his special day. His attorneys told the court he had a medical condition caused by the pressure of the original case.