The 50 men accused of the mass rape of Gisèle Pelicot

They are young, old, big, thin, white and black. They include firefighters, truck drivers, soldiers, security guards, a journalist and a DJ.

These are the 50 men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot at the behest of her husband, Dominique Pelicot, 72, who drugged her for a decade with prescription sleeping pills.

The fact that they broadly represent a microcosm of French society means that they have been called Mr. common man (Mr. anyone).

Next week they will be sentenced, at the end of a trial that began in September. If convicted, they collectively face more than 600 years in prison.

Some of them act defiant, but mostly they look down as they answer the judges’ questions, occasionally looking up to meet their attorneys’ gaze for reassurance.

Warning: You may find some of the details in this story disturbing.

Most of the 50 come from cities and towns within a 50-kilometer (30-mile) radius of the Pelicots’ own village, Mazan.

Some defense attorneys have seen his ordinary character as a valuable line of defense. “Ordinary people do extraordinary things,” said Antoine Minier, a lawyer representing three defendants.

“I think almost everyone could end up in a situation – well, maybe not exactly like this – but could be susceptible to committing a serious crime,” he told the BBC.

Prosecutors have based their sentencing requests to the court on aggravating factors. How many times did the accused go to the Pelicot home, whether they sexually touched Gisèle Pelicot and whether they penetrated her.

Joseph C, 69, a retired sports coach and doting grandfather, faces four years in prison for sexual assault if convicted. That is the most lenient sentence requested by prosecutors.

At the other end of the scale is Romain V, 63, who faces 18 years in prison. He was consciously HIV positive and is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on six separate occasions without wearing protection, although his lawyer told the court that he had received treatment for several years and could not have transmitted the virus.

Prosecutors have been able to go into this level of detail because, unusually for a rape trial, there is a staggering amount of evidence, such as The alleged attacks were filmed for almost a decade by Dominique Pelicot..

He has admitted all charges against him and told the court that his 50 co-accused are also guilty.

All the video evidence means that none of the men have been able to deny that they ever went to the Pelicot house. But the majority vehemently rejects charges of aggravated rape that would carry high sentences.

French rape law defines rape as any sexual act committed by “violence, coercion, threat or surprise”; does not refer to any need for consent.

Therefore, they also argue that they cannot be guilty of rape because they were unaware that Gisèle Pelicot was not in a position to give her consent.

“There can be no crime without the intention to commit it,” said a defense lawyer.

“My body raped her, but my brain didn’t,” volunteer firefighter Christian L insisted, in an example of the convoluted reasoning offered by some of the men.

The only man of the 50 who is not accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot is Jean-Pierre M, 63, nicknamed “disciple” of Dominique Pelicot.

Having learned to drug his wife to abuse her, he did it for five years and admits it.

He blames his crimes on his meeting with Dominique Pelicot, who, according to him, was “reassuring, like a cousin.” Prosecutors are asking for a 17-year prison sentence.

Ahmed T, a 54-year-old plumber who has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 30 years, said that if he had wanted to rape someone, he would not have chosen a woman in her 60s.

Redouane A, a 40-year-old unemployed man, argued that if he had intended to rape Gisèle he would not have allowed her husband to record videos.

Some also say they were intimidated by Dominique Pelicot, who a lawyer told the BBC was an “abhorrent character.”

Through tears, nurse Redouan E said in the courtroom that he was too afraid to leave the bedroom. “You might not be able to tell from the videos, but I was really terrified!” he told the judges.

Others maintain that they were offered drugged drinks and therefore do not remember the encounter, although Dominique Pelicot has denied doing so.

Most, however, claim to have been manipulated or deceived by Dominique Pelicot, who convinced them that they were participating in a sexual game with a consensual partner.

“They were put in a situation where they were scammed,” Christophe Bruschi, Joseph C’s lawyer, told the BBC. “They were taken for a ride.”

But Dominique Pelicot has always said that he made it very clear to the men that his wife was not aware of the plot.

He gave them instructions to avoid waking her or leaving traces that they had been there, such as warming their hands before touching his wife, or not smelling like perfume or cigarettes, he said.

“Everyone knew it, they can’t deny it.”

Since September, the 50 men have appeared, one after another, before the Avignon court.

Typically, in rape cases, in-depth investigations can take several days.

In this trial, due to the large number of defendants involved, they have been condensed to a few hours at most. Their lives have been analyzed at record speed, often turning the court session into a litany of stories of abuse and trauma.

Simoné M, a 43-year-old construction worker, said he was raped when he was 11 by a family friend who hired him to herd cattle in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

Jean-Luc L, 46, a father of four, told the court how he and his family left Vietnam on a boat when he was a child and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for several years before moving to France. .

Fabien S, a 39-year-old man with several previous convictions, including drug trafficking and sexual assault of a minor, was abused and beaten by foster parents from a young age. Like many others, she said she only realized during court-ordered psychiatrist appointments that her confusing and painful childhood memories actually constituted rape.

Many wives, partners and relatives of the accused were called to testify. They, too, searched for answers as they tried to understand how the men in their lives could have ended up “stuck in this kind of situation,” as one woman put it.

“I was surprised, it doesn’t sound like him at all. He was the joy of my life,” Christian L’s elderly father said.

The firefighter is also being investigated for possession of child abuse images, like four others, and faces 16 years in prison. “Something must have happened, he must have become depressed,” his father wondered aloud.

Corinne, the ex-wife of Thierry Pa, 54, a former builder, said he had always been “kind” and “respectful” to her and their children and seemed to leave the door open to a reconciliation.

“When they told me what they were accusing him of, I said: ‘never, that’s impossible… I don’t understand at all what he’s doing here.'” She believed it was the death of her 18-year-old son that had led her ex-husband to fall into a deep depression, start drinking and eventually make contact with Dominique Pelicot.

“I will always be there for him, no matter what,” said Guyana-born Joan K’s ex-girlfriend. At 27 years old, he is the youngest of the accused and a former soldier in the French army.

He has denied raping Gisèle Pelicot on two occasions. While he knew she would be unconscious, he said he had not realized she had not given consent.

Through tears, a woman named Samira said she had spent the last three and a half years “looking for answers” as to why Jérôme V had gone to the Pelicots’ house six times.

“We had sex every day, I don’t understand why he had to go look somewhere else,” she sobbed. She continues to maintain a relationship with Jérôme V, who worked in a greengrocer at the time of her arrest.

He is one of the few who admitted to raping Gisèle, saying he liked the idea of ​​having “free rein” over her, but blamed it, however, on her “uncontrollable sexuality.”

Many former and current partners of the accused have undergone tests to check whether they too had been drugged, like Gisèle. One woman said she would “always have a terrible doubt” that the “respectful, thoughtful, sweet man” she knew had also abused her without her knowledge.

Since the beginning of the trial, there has been much talk about the need to find an element that unites all these men.

A common denominator – besides the fact that all the men went to the Pelicots’ house of their own free will – “is nowhere to be found,” Gisèle’s own lawyers stated.

But there is one factor that all of the defendants indisputably have in common: they all made a conscious decision not to go to the police.

Firefighter Jacques C, 73, said he had thought about it but “then life went on”, while electrician Patrice N, 55, said he “didn’t want to waste the whole day at the police station”.

In the early days of the trial, Gisèle Pelicot was asked if she thought it was legitimate to think that the men had been manipulated by her husband.

He shook his head: “They didn’t rape me with a gun to the head. They raped me in full consciousness.”

Almost as an afterthought, he asked, “Why didn’t you go to the police? Even an anonymous call could have saved my life.”

“But none of them did,” he said after a pause. “Not a single one of them.”