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A defendant was declared guilty on retrial of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and was given his incarceration period extended to ten years.

Appeal Trial

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

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

The court heard that the accused, a family man, reached out to the victim's then husband, the husband, in an internet forum named “without her consent”, where the husband was seeking men to visit his house to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a comatose state.

“We hope the jury will affirm that in this country, human rights are also women’s rights – that permission is personal, not delegated,” declared the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is received personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sex offenders in recent French history, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for sedating his then wife and soliciting multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their union.

Fifty other men were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the sole individual to appeal against his sentence. He was originally handed a term to 9 years in prison, a punishment increased on Thursday to 10 years.

The lead state prosecutor, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any responsibility”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his residence in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was stepping out, the evidence indicated.

The ex-husband, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily give evidence at the retrial, informed the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he told to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a wider discussion on sexual violence norms in society as the defendant continued to claim he was blameless and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the residence, his behavior had been acceptable.

The jury in the higher court was displayed recorded footage of the victim's unresponsive form, sedated and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape repeatedly over a duration of what investigators stated was several hours. The presiding judge said she had been at risk of fatal outcome by suffocation. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unconscious and had not consented.

Accused's Testimony

Dogan told the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and disputed it was rape. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not assault. He declared the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had allowed him to the home, and therefore it was OK. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” the accused told the court. “I carried on because he convinced me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I did not intend to harm that individual.”

Pelicot's Words

The victim, who was supported upon leaving court each day by supporters present to stand with her, addressed Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you violated me? It is illegal to assault an incapacitated woman. How could I have give you consent? Never.”

The victim, 72, became an global icon after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

Sie, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s failure to take responsibility showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is maybe in the process of that, possibly driven by the collective awareness spurred by the publication of your case.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how societal tolerance was still widespread in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor told the defendant: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a person, it’s an whole disturbing cultural framework that you are supporting.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of five came to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a building manager. The testimony revealed that his parent was aggressive and that Dogan began smoking cannabis at the age of 10. When he was 17 he was apprehended by police for selling narcotics and his father evicted him the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his twenties and had worked as a laborer but had experienced periods of living on the streets.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the main caregiver for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had repeated intimate relations outside their marriage. His legal team said this was his strategy for managing with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a evaluator that annually he sought transactional encounters on his special day. His lawyers told the court he had joint inflammation triggered by the anxiety of the initial proceedings.