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A man has been found guilty on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and has had his incarceration period increased to a decade.

Retrial Proceedings

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a appeal hearing this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, accompanied by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of raping the victim in her home in Provence in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a family man, made contact with the victim's spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “without her knowledge”, where the husband was looking for men to enter his residence to rape his wife after he had sedated her into a unconscious state.

We expect the court will say loud and clear that in this nation, human rights are also women’s rights – that agreement is individual, not transferred,” declared the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is obtained personally and not through someone else from a husband.”

Context

The husband, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and soliciting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of many years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a notable trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to challenge his verdict. He was originally handed a term to 9 years in prison, a sentence increased on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had argued he should serve twelve years, because he “completely denies to take any blame”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had initially sent Dominique Pelicot graphic images and then traveled an hour from his residence in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was leaving, the testimony revealed.

The ex-husband, who was brought from isolation in prison to temporarily testify at the retrial, told the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to violate my wife after I’ve sedated her without her knowledge.”

The courtroom became a central issue for a wider discussion on sexual violence norms in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, contending that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the room, his actions had been justifiable.

The jury in the higher court was presented with video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, unconscious and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape on several occasions over a period of what investigators stated was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by choking. The state prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not agreed.

Accused's Testimony

The defendant informed the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and disputed it was violation. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not rape. He stated the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had allowed him to the residence, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was deceived by the husband. “I attempted to cease,” Dogan informed the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to harm that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by crowds gathered to stand with her, said to Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you violated me? It is illegal to rape an unaware woman. When did I ever give you consent? Not once.”

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

State's Argument

Sie, turning to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take accountability showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is possibly in the process of that, maybe motivated by the collective awareness resulting from the exposure of your ordeal.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor told the defendant: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an entire sordid cultural framework that you are upholding.”

Personal History

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five moved to the nation of France, where his father worked as a concierge. The court heard that his parent was violent and that Dogan began using drugs at the age of ten. When he was seventeen he was caught by authorities for selling narcotics and his father evicted him of home. He served time in prison for trafficking in his twenties and had worked as a builder 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 wife worked in a school canteen. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had frequent intimate relations outside their marriage. His legal team said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a evaluator that once a year he looked for transactional encounters on his special day. His lawyers stated to the court he had joint inflammation triggered by the pressure of the initial proceedings.