On Monday, Dominique Pelicot made his latest attempt to apologise, asking the “forgiveness” of the family and hailing the “courage” of his ex-wife during the trial.
The two sons and daughter did not attend that hearing.
“Everyone is permanently affected by this horror,” said lawyer Antoine Camus. Along with Stephane Babonneau, Camus represents all the family members at the trial.
“They have lost their innocence,” said one of the daughters-in-law, Celine, in court.
“Before the trial, everyone was on a quest for the truth, asking ‘who is this man in fact?”, Camus told AFP.
“They didn’t get an answer because Dominique Pelicot only says what he wants to say. As long as the proof is not waved in his face, he says nothing.”
‘The forgotten one’
This lack of response was particularly tough for Caroline.
Investigators found photos of her naked on her father’s computer, taken without her knowledge. In some, she appears asleep, dressed in her mother’s underwear.
Her brothers urged Dominique Pelicot to come explain what had happened and whether Caroline had been subjected to the same abuse as her mother.
“If you still have a little humanity, (I would like) you to tell the truth about the actions you took towards my sister, who is suffering,” said David.
Caroline feels like the “great forgotten one” of the trial: “Gisele was raped while drugged. The only difference between her and me is the lack of evidence concerning me,” she said in court.
But the “family will continue to fight”, said David, evoking the painful moves to build a new family life that erases Dominique Pelicot.
Caroline still campaigns to warn about the dangers posed by rapists who drug their victims. “She quickly understood that this case transcends family history and says something collective,” said Camus.
By publishing her book in 2022 — preserving the anonymity of her loved ones at a time when her mother preferred to remain in the shadows — Caroline wrote that she wanted to “transform this mud into noble material”, help the victims to overcome the “weight of shame” and “reject the unbearable”.
Two years later, her mother insisted the trial be held in public.
“When she (Gisele Pelicot) saw the videos in May, she asked herself ‘how was it possible that I was treated like that, like a rubbish bag, hundreds of times? That dozens of people could be found to rape an inert woman?’,” said Camus.
