A French court found has found Dominique Pelicot guilty of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade, and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her unconscious body in their home.
Here is a timeline of events in the case, based on court records and testimony. Both Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot are now 72.
1973
The Pelicots marry, two years after meeting. “We were so in love, we didn’t want to be apart,” Gisèle Pelicot told the court at the trial.
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1974
The first of their three children is born. They settle on the outskirts of Paris, where Gisèle Pelicot is the family’s main breadwinner as a manager in a big public company, and Dominique Pelicot works at different jobs, including as a real estate agent.
2010
Dominique Pelicot is caught filming women under their skirts in a shopping mall near Paris, using a miniature camera concealed in a pen. He is arrested and fined €100 for “capturing indecent images.” Gisèle Pelicot learned of the arrest only in 2020 from an investigative judge, in the lead-up to the current trial. “If I had been informed, maybe I would have left him, or not,” she told the court. “But I would have been more attentive.”
July 2011
Dominique Pelicot starts drugging his wife, he said in court. Gisèle Pelicot told the court that she recalled she had a blackout on a Saturday in 2011 when she slept in until 6pm. Later, as the drugging became more regular, she said, she suffered frequent unexplained blackouts that she feared were the symptoms of Alzheimer’s or a brain tumour.
2013
The couple retire and move to a bungalow with a garden and a pool in Mazan, a small town near Avignon, in the south of France. Their children and grandchildren visit regularly.
2014
Adrien Longeron, then 24, is the first stranger that evidence shows Dominique Pelicot filmed penetrating Gisèle Pelicot while she was asleep in her bed. The footage was among thousands of videos and photos the police later found on Dominique Pelicot’s electronics. Longeron is among the dozens who were charged with aggravated rape. He pleaded not guilty.
September 12th, 2020
Dominique Pelicot is arrested after a security guard catches him filming up the skirts of women with his smartphone in a supermarket in Carpentras, a town near Mazan. The police seize the two phones, a camera and a video recorder he is carrying, as well as a laptop, a USB key and an SD card from his home. He is released while awaiting charges and tells his wife about the event.
November 2nd, 2020
Gisèle Pelicot meets with police in Carpentras, believing she will hear about the supermarket event. Instead, police tell her about the videos they have found on her husband’s electronics and say that they believe her husband has been drugging her for years and inviting dozens of men into their home to rape her alongside him.
November 3rd, 2020
The Pelicots’ children help her move out of the house, which is now a crime scene. Police show Caroline Darian, the middle child and only daughter (who goes by a pen name) two photos recovered from her father’s electronics that show her sleeping in a strange position, with the duvet pulled back and the lights on. She testifies that she is convinced her father drugged and sexually assaulted her. He denies the accusations and says he did not take the photos.
February 9th, 2021
The police make the first arrests of other men charged in the case, using photos, as well as records from Skype conversations, phone calls and text messages, to track most of them down. Dominique Pelicot had directed the police to a hard drive in his garage where they had discovered thousands of images and videos he had taken and edited. Many were stored in a folder named “Abuse”.
September 2nd, 2024
The trial begins. Gisèle Pelicot takes the stand and explains her decision to allow a trial to be public and refuse the anonymity offered by law to victims of sexual assault. She says she wants society to change the way it deals with rape. “So when other women, if they wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of Ms Pelicot,” she tells the court calmly. “No woman should suffer from being drugged and victimised.”
September 14th
Thousands of women participate in protests across France to support Gisèle Pelicot.
December 19th
Verdicts and sentences are announced. Dominique Pelicot receives a maximum sentence of 20 years.
– This article originally appeared in The New York Times.