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September 15, 2024 14 mins

A court case out of France has captured the attention of the world – a disturbing story about A 71-year-old woman, her ex-husband and 50 other men. For the next three months, Gisèle Pélicot will sit in a courtroom in Avignon, France, as those 51 men (all but one who are strangers to her) face rape charges for alleged crimes against her, that she has no memory of. In today's deep dive, we'll take you through the Pélicot case, and why the woman at the centre of it wants you to know her story. 

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Credits:
Hosts: Emma Gillespie and Chloe Christie
Producer: Orla Maher 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Justa heads up, we'll be discussing sexual abuse and distressing
themes on the podcast today. The episode might not be
for everyone, so if you're not filling up to it,
feel free to skip and come back again tomorrow. Good morning,
and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the sixteenth

(00:21):
of September. I'm Emma, I'm Chloe. A court case out
of France has captured the attention of the world these
last couple of weeks. It's an incredibly disturbing story about
a seventy one year old woman, her ex husband, and
fifty other men. For the next three months, Gaselle Pelico
will sit in a courtroom in Avignon, France, as those

(00:43):
fifty one men, all but one who are strangers to her,
face rape charges for alleged crimes against her that she
has no memory of.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
You've probably seen the headlines, but there's a lot that's
come out about this case, and there's a lot to come,
so we want to help you understand the context this
story today in the Deep Dive. But first, m what's
making headlines.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore has secured her sixth
term in office after New South Wales held its local
council elections over the weekend. Moore first assumed the role
of Lord Mayor for the City of Sydney in two
thousand and four. She said she was really delighted about
the outcome of the election and that it was quote
a pretty tough campaign and some awful things were said,

(01:29):
but I'm so encouraged and happy about the city community
endorsing me.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
A report into the robojet scheme has found twelve current
and former public servants and former agency heads breached their
code of conduct on ninety seven occasions. Robodet was a
government debt collection system used from twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen.
An illegal automation error resulted in over one point seven
billion dollars of unlawful debt notices. The Australian Public Service Commissioner,

(01:57):
who released the findings on Friday, said the scheme was
a failure of government and apologize for the public services
role in it.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
A fifty cent public transport fair trial underway in Queensland
at the moment, will be extended permanently after both major
parties in the state committed to continuing the cheaper transport
fares if they win October's election. Queensland Premier Stephen Miles
said Labour would lock in the fifty cent fairs quote
forever if they're successful at next month's election. Opposition later

(02:29):
David Crucifully also announced over the weekend that the LNP
will extend the current fifty cent fare if there's a
change of government.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
And today's good news, the US Food and Drug Administration
the FDA has approved the first over the counter hearing
a device. The device is compatible with the newest Apple
Airport's pro which were released last week in the US.
Acting director for the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health,
Michelle Tava, so the device is quote another step that
advances the availability, accessibility, and acceptability of hearing support for adults.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Gizelle Pelico is the woman at the center of a
rape trial in France at the moment, she says she
was raped while unconscious over a period of ten years. Now.
Her ex husband has admitted to orchestrating the assaults, but
the global interest in this story has exploded in recent weeks,
and it's one that we might not actually have ever

(03:28):
known about or even discussed on this podcast if it
weren't for Gazelle herself after she explicitly requested the proceedings
be made public in the hopes of helping other women
in the future. Chloe, this is an incredibly disturbing case
and one that you've covered for us on the Daily Os.
The details are really distressing, as we mentioned at the
top of the podcast, but central to this story are

(03:51):
the wishes from Gazelle the alleged victim, to open up
a conversation about abuse. So let's take it back a
little bit. Where this case come from. Where does this
story start?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So m At the center of this case is Gazelle
Pellico and Dominique Pellico. They're both seventy one years old.
They're now separated, but the pair got married when they
were both twenty one. They have three children and seven grandchildren,
and they lived together in a small village called Mazan
in the south of France, and speaking to the court,
it was Gazelle's understanding that they were a strong couple.

(04:25):
It was in Mazan that Dominique was initially investigated by
police when in November twenty twenty, he was caught filming
up women's skirts at a local supermarket. Police searched Dominique's
computer and said that they found a folder labeled abuses
containing over twenty thousand images of an unconscious woman being
raped by several different men.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And that woman was Gazelle.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, So French police were actually investigating Dominique for a
completely different offense when they discovered all this evidence of
far more serious crimes. Started as this upskirting case and
has clearly evolved into something far more sinister.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, they inadvertently stumbled upon this footage when they were
investigating Dominique of separate offenses. And Gizelle said that the
search of Dominique's computer and those early police investigations is
what saved her life. She had no memory of the
rapes and did not recognize any of the men in
the images that were shown to her by police, and

(05:26):
that's because her then husband had admitted to drugging her.
Dominique has pleaded guilty to all the charges against him,
which includes aggravated rape, drugging, and violating the privacy of
his wife.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Okay, so that brings us to the court case that's
currently playing out. Gizelle was being frequently sedated. She is
the woman in the images uncovered by police being assaulted
by several men, but she didn't know about the assaults.
How has she described her memory of that time?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
This part is pretty distressing. During her testimony, Gazelle recounted
experiencing total blackouts beginning in twenty eleven. By twenty thirteen,
she became increasingly worried that she was developing Alzheimer's disease
due to chronic memory lapses, weight loss, and hair loss.
She said, I didn't understand why I had these moments
like this.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
I mean, it's unimaginable to consider that she's going through
this kind of personal turmoil of a health crisis and
feeling unwell and having no idea that that was just
the tip of this horrifying iceberg. What we have learned
over the course of this case is that the extent

(06:39):
of abuse against Gizelle was extreme and it was calculated,
and Dominique, her ex husband, has admitted to that. Can
you take us through a bit more about the revelations
from him.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, this was just the beginning of a lot more
to come. Dominic did give more details about the abuse
and so it is very disturbing if you're not in
the right space to hear it, please just skip ahead.
Dominique admitted to putting sleeping pills into his wife's evening
meals to sedate her before raping her and arranging for
others to rape her from twenty eleven to twenty twenty.

(07:14):
He told police that while Gazelle was unconscious, he invited
a number of men to their home to film them
raping her.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
We've heard that there were several men involved. There are
dozens of men in this court case who are facing charges.
What do we know about them? How did they end
up in Dominique and Gazelle's home? How were they engaged?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Dominique met most of these men via what is a
now banned online chat for him called Coco and this
has been very much on the radar of police for
quite some time. It's been used in the past to
coordinate sex crimes and other serious offenses across Europe.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
In terms of the men, is there a specific profile?
Do we know how old they were?

Speaker 2 (07:54):
After reviewing the footage from Dominique's computer, police made a
list of eighty three suspects and they've identified and charged fifty.
The men who allegedly assaulted Gazelle were aged between twenty
six and seventy.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Four before we get to what lies ahead for those
fifty men who have been charged. Dominique, the ex husband
of the victim, has pleaded guilty to all the charges
against him. Now, just to recap, that includes aggravated rape, drugging,
violating the privacy of his wife. There are some other
violations as well against him.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
What are those so m On top of those charges
you mentioned, he's also accused of violating the privacy of
his daughter and two daughters in law after illicit photos
of them were also found on his devices. For all
of these crimes, Dominique faces a maximum sentence of twenty
years in prison. His lawyer described his actions as quote
a form of addiction, and told reporters that Dominique is

(08:52):
ashamed of what he did. It is unforgivable.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
When we shared this story on our feed that you
wrote for us, Chloe, lots of people in the comments
were really surprised that twenty years is the maximum sentencing
that he's facing. A lot of outrage people said that
they didn't feel like it was a severe enough sentence
for these crimes. Obviously, sentencing is still to come, and

(09:16):
these are the limitations of the French law. But there
are fifty other men involved in this case too, so
what about them.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
So most of the other fifty defendants have been charged
with aggravated rape and they could also face up to
twenty years if they're convicted. Many have pleaded not guilty,
with some saying that they thought they were participating in
a consensual role playing scenario between the couple where Gazelle
just pretended to be asleep. Gazelle has disputed those claims,

(09:45):
saying they knew exactly what they were doing and what
shape I was in. These videos are scenes of horror
for me. Similarly, Dominique said everyone knew Gazelle was drugged
and unconscious, adding that quote every individual had free will
and could have left the premier.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
So a big part of this story, Chloe, is to
do with how much of it is in the public domain.
In many court cases, you know, we often really struggle
to report on them. Details can be quite limited. Courtrooms
can be closed, and that's for many reasons, to protect
identities or because of legal orders. How is it with

(10:25):
this particular case, a really unique situation, that we have
so much detailed information.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
You're right, so under French law, complainants have the right
to remain entirely private during a trial, so we might
see pseudonyms like John Doe or Jane Doe, and that's
how we will never know who is behind these cases.
But instead Gazelle Pelico has insisted on complete total publicity,
and that's quote from her.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Has she said why she wants her name published and
these allegations aired.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
She said to reporters, so when other women wake up
with no memory, they might remember the testimony of miss
Now this has been met with widespread support from people
in France women across the world who have commended Gizelle
for her bravery. That is not an easy thing to do,
to put your name to something that is as horrific
as what we heard in that.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Trial if we zoom out a little bit, and I
think this kind of ties in to the outrage about
maybe current French legislation, that it doesn't go far enough,
that it's not harsh enough, and what that tells us
about the country's relationship with women's rights. There's actually another
quite high profile case in the spotlight in France now,

(11:35):
specifically about sexual abuse and women's rights. What do we
know about that story?

Speaker 2 (11:41):
There have been growing calls to change the country's attitudes
towards sexual violence, notably led by high profile French actor
Judith god Resh. In February, god Resh, who's fifty one,
publicly accused of director she worked with at the age
of fourteen of sexually assaulting her on a film set.
And there was an opinion piece I read from The
Washington that was written by a French journalist. Her name

(12:02):
is Rakaia Dalio. What she was arguing in the piece
was that France has been slower to embrace the principles
that we saw in the Me Too movement at the
end of twenty seventeen. She suggested that the support we've
seen with god Resch and now what we've seen with
Pelico quote signaled that perhaps the larger culture here is
finally ready to push back.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
In practical terms for women in France, what does that
actually look like, what do they want to change? Specifically?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
It's opened up a conversation about what the French government
defines as rape. Advocates are pushing French lawmakers to explicitly
include the concept of consent in the legal definition of rape.
In March, President Emmanuel Macron expressed his support for this change,
which could mark a significant step forward in addressing sexual
violence in the country.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
But it's obviously been a tumultuous year in French politics,
an election, a change of prime minister, a limp, lots
going on, and I'm sure a lot of women were
hopeful after those comments in March from President Macron. And
maybe now that the Pelico case is dominating global headlines

(13:13):
that will kind of spur on lawmakers to get this
done sooner.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, give it the momentum it needs.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Back to this trial, What is ahead? What are the
next steps?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
The trial will continue and for the next three months
until December twenty and I'm sure we can expect the
conversation around this case and women's rights activism in France
to evolve.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Chloe, thank you so much for taking us through that today,
a really distressing but important case. We will pop some
links in the show notes to support groups. If this
episode has raised anything for you. Thank you so much
for listening to today's episode of The Daily Os. We
will be back with another episode tomorrow. Until then, have

(13:55):
a great day.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
My name is Lily Maddin and I'm a proud Arunda
Bujelung Calkatin woman. From Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest
Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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