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A defendant has been found guilty on appeal of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and received his prison sentence raised to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

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

A jury of four women and five men, joined by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her bedroom in southern France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that the accused, a family man, made contact with the victim's then husband, the husband, in an online chatroom titled “without her consent”, where Pelicot was looking for men to come to his home to assault his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a deep sleep.

We trust the court will declare that in this society, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not given by another,” said the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is received directly and not by proxy from a spouse.”

Context

The husband, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was handed a sentence to two decades in prison last year for sedating his wife at the time and inviting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the sole individual to contest his sentence. He was first handed a term to nine years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to ten years.

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

Evidence Presented

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

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to temporarily testify at the retrial, told the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “sedated” and he told to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep unbeknownst to her.”

The courtroom became a central issue for a broader debate on sexual violence norms in society as Dogan continued to assert he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, stating that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the room, his behavior had been permissible.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was shown video evidence of the victim's unconscious figure, comatose and breathing heavily in a comatose state, while a smiling Dogan committed rape multiple times over a timeframe of what police said was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at danger of fatal outcome by choking. The state's case said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan informed the court the recordings were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He declared the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan stated to the court. “I proceeded because he convinced me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to hurt that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

The victim, who was applauded upon exiting the courtroom each day by supporters present to support her, told the defendant in court: “You fail to comprehend. When will you acknowledge you violated me? It is unlawful to rape an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you consent? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she relinquished her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

Sie, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's unwillingness to take accountability showed that: “The shame remains. The public is possibly in the course of that, maybe driven by the societal understanding spurred by the publication of your situation.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of innocence showed how rape culture was still common in society as part of “archaic” forms of “male domination”. He said: “It is imperative to change the culture of violence to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor said to the defendant: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete sordid societal structure that you are endorsing.”

Personal History

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The evidence indicated that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began smoking cannabis at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by police for selling narcotics and his parent forced him to leave the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for drug dealing in his young adulthood and had worked as a builder but had undergone periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had regular sexual encounters outside their marriage. His defence said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. Dogan had told a evaluator that annually he engaged in paid sex on his birthday. His lawyers informed the court he had joint inflammation triggered by the pressure of the original case.