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A man was convicted on appeal of raping Gisèle Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and received his prison sentence raised to 10 years.

Higher Court Case

The defendant, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A jury of four women and five men, joined by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her residence in southern France in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a married father, connected with the victim's husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform titled “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to visit his house to rape his wife once he had sedated her into a deep sleep.

We expect the court will declare that in this society, human rights are also women’s rights – that agreement is individual, not transferred,” said the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is secured personally and not via a representative from a spouse.”

Context

The husband, one of the worst sexual predators in France's contemporary records, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for drugging his spouse and soliciting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a period of many years of their union.

Fifty other men were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to challenge his sentence. He was initially sentenced to nine years in prison, a sentence enhanced on Thursday to ten years.

The state's attorney, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve twelve years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent Dominique Pelicot sexually explicit photos and then driven an hour from his village in the region to assault the victim, after notifying his wife he was going out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was brought from solitary confinement in prison to briefly testify at the appeal trial, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I seek someone to abuse my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious unbeknownst to her.”

The courtroom became a focus point for a larger conversation on sexual violence norms in society as the defendant continued to assert he was blameless and had not committed rape, arguing that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the room, his actions had been acceptable.

The panel in the higher court was presented with recorded footage of Gisèle Pelicot’s limp body, sedated and breathing heavily in a deep sleep, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation on several occasions over a period of what police said was several hours. The court official said she had been at danger of death by choking. The prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not given permission.

Accused's Testimony

The defendant informed the court the footage were simply “sexual encounters” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He declared the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” Dogan told the court. “I continued because he convinced me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to harm that woman.”

Victim's Response

The victim, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds present to back her, told Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When are you going to recognise you violated me? It’s a crime to rape an incapacitated woman. How could I have give you consent? Not once.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an global icon after she waived her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

Legal Commentary

The prosecutor, addressing the victim in court, said the defendant's failure to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is possibly in the midst of that, possibly motivated by the societal understanding brought by the revelation of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “It is imperative to change the culture of violence to a ethos of permission.”

Sie told Dogan: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an whole sordid societal structure that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of five moved to the nation of France, where his father worked as a concierge. The evidence indicated that his father was abusive and that Dogan began smoking cannabis aged ten. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by authorities for selling narcotics and his father forced him to leave the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his twenties and had worked as a builder but had experienced periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a son with a genetic condition, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a educational cafeteria. The court heard his spouse did not know he had frequent extramarital activities outside their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. The defendant had told a evaluator that annually he engaged in transactional encounters on his special day. His attorneys informed the court he had joint inflammation resulting from the anxiety of the initial proceedings.