Daughter of French man who drugged wife, invited men to rape her believes she was also drugged, sexually abused
Warning: This article contains mentions of rape and sexual abuse.
The daughter of Gisèle Pélicot, the 72-year-old French woman who survived a decade of sexual abuse from her husband and dozens of strangers—and won a high-profile three-month trial that shocked the world—believes her father also drugged and sexually abused her.
"I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don't have any evidence," Caroline Darian, 45, said of Dominique Pélicot, 72, in a new interview with BBC.
Darian noted that her father was “not sick," as he's a “monster” who “knew perfectly well what he did.”
She said he “should die in prison.”
“He is a dangerous man,” she said, adding that “there is no way he can get out [of prison]. No way."
Durian is also campaigning against chemical submission, or the administration of drugs to commit a crime like rape or theft, saying it's under-reported.
She noted that most victims have no recollection of the assaults and may not even realize they were drugged.
"And that's the case for how many victims?" she said. "They are not believed because there's no evidence. They're not listened to, not supported."
During her testimony before the criminal court in Avignon, Darian said police had shown her photos that Dominique had taken while she was sleeping.
“I realized right away I was drugged in that photo,” she said.
Authorities found Darian's photos in a computer folder labeled, "Around my daughter, naked," according to CBS News.
When news about her father's crimes broke out, Darian began writing a book titled I'll Never Call Him Dad Again.
Police began to investigate Dominique in September 2020 after a security guard caught him secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping center.
They eventually found hundreds of photos and videos of Gisèle on his computer, visibly unconscious and mostly in the fetal position.
Authorities also found chats on the website coco.fr where Dominique recruited strangers to come to their home and rape his wife. The website has since been shut down.
Dominique admitted to giving his wife powerful tranquilizers like Temesta, an anxiety-inducing drug, from 2011 to 2020 before he and other men raped her.
The convicted rapists, aged between 26 and 74, include a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss, and a journalist.
Some were single, others married or divorced, and some were family men. Most participated just once, but some took part up to six times.
Dominique took part in the rapes, filmed them, and encouraged the other men using degrading language, according to prosecutors.
Police counted a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified.
Dominique's co-defendants got jail terms of between three and 15 years, which were not fully in line with prosecutors' requests.
During the trial, many of the co-defendants said they thought they were simply helping a libertine couple live out its fantasies, but Dominique told investigators they were all aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge.
Dominque was sentenced to 20 years in jail and isn't eligible for parole, which was what prosecutors wanted.
Still, the Pelicot children were "disappointed by these low sentences."
All hearings went public, granting Gisèle her wish for "complete publicity until the end" of the court case.
In 1991, Dominique has been charged with murder and rape, which he has denied. He, however, has admitted to a 1999 attempted rape following DNA evidence.
