The closing of fifty males to be cross-examined within the rape of a drugged and bare Gisèle Pelicot stood ahead of the judges in a white sweater and denims.Philippe Leleu: Unmarried, no youngsters, a devoted weight lifter {and professional} gardener who, at 62, used to be nearing retirement when the police got here knocking. His mom opened the door — they are living beside one every other, and because her stroke 10 years in the past, they dine in combination and he spends maximum nights at her house.“I by no means imagined I’d come ahead of a courtroom for him, by no means, by no means,” she instructed the judges just lately.But right here he used to be, a few of the accused, status within the crowded court docket within the southern town of Avignon, a part of a mass rape trial, now in its twelfth week, that has deeply shaken France.Ms. Pelicot’s ex-husband of fifty years, Dominique Pelicot, has pleaded to blame to drugging her for just about a decade to rape her, and providing her subconscious frame as much as strangers he met on-line. Prosecutors on Monday asked the utmost sentence for him: twenty years in jail.He’s on trial with 50 different males — all however one charged with irritated rape, tried rape or sexual attack of Ms. Pelicot. The French media have dubbed them “Monsieur Tout-le-monde” — Mr. Each Guy — on account of how various the lads are, and the way atypical.They’re quick, tall, flabby, lean, clean-shaven, bearded, bald and pony-tailed. All however 14 had been hired, in jobs that replicate the spectrum of middle- and working-class rural France: truck drivers, carpenters and business staff, a jail guard, a nurse, an I.T. skilled operating for a financial institution, a neighborhood journalist.Thanks on your persistence whilst we check get entry to. In case you are in Reader mode please go out and log into your Instances account, or subscribe for all of The Instances.Thanks on your persistence whilst we check get entry to.Already a subscriber? Log in.Need all of The Instances? Subscribe.
