Getty ImagesGisèle Pelicot arrives on the Avignon courthouse on MondayFrench prosecutors have demanded a 20-year prison sentence for Dominique Pelicot, who’s accused of drugging his former spouse Gisèle for a decade and welcoming 50 males recruited on-line to rape her.Mr Pelicot, who has admitted to the fees, must additionally go through clinical remedy for 10 years, prosecutors stated.20 years – the utmost sentence for rape below French legislation – “is each so much… and too little given the gravity of the acts that had been dedicated and repeated,” stated prosecutor Laure Chabaud.Relating to an evaluate of Mr Pelicot made by way of a psychiatrist previous within the trial, Ms Chabaud stated that the defendant offered “more than one sexual deviances”.Verdicts and sentences are anticipated subsequent month.”He sought excitement via a need to put up, humiliate and debase his spouse – the individual he claimed to cherish probably the most on the earth,” Ms Chabaud instructed the court docket, pronouncing that Mr Pelicot, 72, must be re-examined on the finish of his sentence prior to being launched.Some other prosecutor, Jean-François Mayet, stated the trial had shaken up society and that what’s at stake “used to be no longer a conviction or an acquittal” however “to essentially alternate the family members between women and men”.Mr Mayet paid tribute to the “braveness and dignity” of Gisèle Pelicot, who used to be in court docket as she has been maximum days because the trial started in September.Her resolution to waive anonymity and feature an open trial has resulted in an enormous quantity of pastime within the case, which has in flip sparked a national dialog on rape tradition, consent and chemical submission – drugging any person for the needs of coercion or attack.On Monday morning posters studying “twenty years for everybody” had seemed at the partitions across the Avignon courthouse the place the trial is going down.Then again, it’s not going the 50 defendants on this ordinary case can be passed sentences this lengthy.The longest prison time period asked by way of prosecutors nowadays – aside from the 20-year call for made for Mr Pelicot – used to be for Jean-Pierre Marechal, a co-defendant who isn’t accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot, however who has admitted to drugging and raping his personal ex-wife on Mr Pelicot’s recommendation and instruction. He’s dealing with 17 years in jail.
Getty ImagesPosters have seemed at the streets of Avignon, spelling out “Rape is rape – twenty years for each and every”Prosecutors additionally demanded 10 years for lots of the different 19 defendants whose instances had been tested nowadays.Nearly all of the 50 accused deny the fees of rape, arguing that they can’t be responsible as a result of they didn’t realise Ms Pelicot used to be subconscious after they had been invited to the circle of relatives’s house by way of her husband, and subsequently didn’t “know” they had been raping her.However prosecutor Ms Chabaud stated that “in 2024 we will be able to now not take care of that as a result of she did not say the rest, she consented.”She added that neither the cases nor the behaviour of Gisèle Pelicot “will have led those males to imagine that she agreed to be subjected to those sexual acts in her torpid state.”
Getty ImagesDominique Pelicot in court docket on 25 NovemberIn an deal with to mark the World Day for the Removing of Violence Towards Ladies, High Minister Michel Barnier stated this trial used to be a watershed second for the rustic’s efforts to struggle violence in opposition to girls.”I am satisfied that the Mazan trial will mark a prior to and after,” he stated.Mazan is the title of the village the place the Pelicots lived and the place Dominque Pelicot filmed the native males he had contacted on-line.The top minister additionally introduced a sequence of presidency measures to struggle violence in opposition to girls, together with investment for pharmacies to dispense house drug check kits below a pilot scheme to combat chemical submission.Previous on Monday, Equality Minister Salima Saa stated the federal government used to be “absolutely mobilised” and introduced the growth of a device which permits sufferers of sexual violence to document lawsuits in hospitals and no longer simply police stations.The device is recently utilized in 236 hospitals and can be prolonged to 377 by way of the tip of subsequent yr.A brand new consciousness marketing campaign used to be additionally introduced. The trial, which opened in early September, is now in its ultimate stretch.Attorneys for the 50 defendants will make their remaining arguments over the following 3 weeks, and a verdict is predicted by way of 20 December.
