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A defendant was convicted on higher court review of raping Gisèle Pelicot after she was sedated by her then-husband – and was given his jail term raised to a decade.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, forty-four, an out-of-work construction worker, who had appealed his first conviction last year, faced a appeal hearing this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her bedroom in the south of France in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a married father, made contact with Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, the husband, in an online chatroom named “without her consent”, where the husband was seeking men to come to his home to rape his wife once he had drugged her into a comatose state.

We trust the jury will affirm that in this country, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that consent is individual, not transferred,” stated the victim's attorney, her legal representative. “Permission is secured personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

The ex-husband, a notorious sex offenders in recent French history, was given a prison term to two decades in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and inviting multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the town of Mazan over a period of nearly ten years of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to contest his verdict. He was initially handed a term to 9 years in prison, a punishment enhanced on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had contended he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent the husband sexually explicit photos and then traveled an hour from his village in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after telling his wife he was going out, the court heard.

The ex-husband, who was transported from isolation in prison to briefly testify at the hearing, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to assault my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her consent.”

The trial became a key topic for a broader debate on rape culture in society as Dogan continued to claim he was blameless and had not committed rape, contending that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the room, his behavior had been permissible.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, unconscious and breathing heavily in a comatose state, while a smiling the perpetrator performed assault on several occasions over a duration of what investigators stated was 3.5 hours. The court official said she had been at risk of fatal outcome by choking. The state prosecution said there was no question that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.

Accused's Testimony

The defendant stated to the court the recordings were simply “sexual encounters” and denied it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had allowed him to the home, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” the accused told the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a closing remarks to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to injure that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was cheered upon leaving court each day by crowds present to stand with her, told the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It is unlawful to rape an unaware woman. At what point did I give you permission? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an global icon after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

State's Argument

Sie, addressing the victim in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The public is possibly in the course of that, maybe propelled by the public consciousness brought by the exposure of your situation.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of innocence showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

Sie said to Dogan: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete sordid social system that you are supporting.”

Personal History

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 moved to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The testimony revealed that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began consuming marijuana aged ten. When he was 17 he was caught by police for drug trafficking and his father kicked him out the residence. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his twenties and had worked as a builder but had faced periods of living on the streets.

He was wed and had a son with special needs, who he was the main caregiver for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had regular sexual encounters beyond their marriage. His defence said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. Dogan had stated to a mental health expert that each year he sought commercial sex on his special day. His attorneys told the court he had joint inflammation triggered by the stress of the first trial.