Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter says she suspects her father also drugged her in connection with sexual abuse

CNN
—

Karolina Darian, daughter Gisèle Pelicot who suffered years of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of her then-husband and other men, she described how she was certain that her father had drugged her and strongly suspected that she had also been raped.

In an extensive interview with the BBC, 46-year-old Darian described the mental “burdens” of being the daughter of both victim and perpetratorexpressing her strong desire for her father to die in prison.

A terrifying, months-long mass rape and drug trial that shook France to its core ended with 51 convictions last month. Dominique Pelicot and 49 others were found guilty of rape or sexual assault against his ex-wife, while one of the defendants was convicted of attempted and aggravated rape of his own wife, rather than Gisèle, after copying Pelicot’s methods.

A trial that forced the country to examine a culture grappling with pervasive misogyny and systemic sexual assault has ended. galvanized women to demand change in approaching gender-based violence.

Darian described receiving the fateful call from her mother one evening in November 2020, in which Gisèle informed her that her father, now 72, had been drugging Gisèle for approximately 10 years to facilitate her rape by various men.

“At that moment I lost my normal life,” Darian told the broadcaster.

Darian shared how she strongly suspected that she was also a victim of sexual abuse arranged by her father. A few days after the phone call, Darian herself was called by the police and showed photos found on Dominique’s laptop in which she was lying unconscious on a bed, wearing only a T-shirt and underwear – photos in which she did not immediately recognize herself.

She told the BBC that she knew her father had drugged her and believed she had also been raped. “But I don’t have any evidence,” he laments.

“And this is the case for how many victims? They are not believed because there is no evidence. They are not listened to and supported.”

In court, Dominique maintained that he had not abused his daughter. Earlier that day, Darian had shouted at him, “I’ll never see you again! You will die alone like a dog!” – media reports.

She now describes her father as “one of the worst sexual predators of the last 20-30 years” and has written a book titled “I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again,” detailing the trauma in her family.

She described the reality she faces as a “terrible burden” and now can only see Dominique as “the sex offender that he is.”

The book also explores the concept of “chemical surrender” – the use of drugs to facilitate criminal action against a person, including sexual abuse. Dominique thus arranged to molest his wife by making her unconscious body available to strangers on the Internet.

In December, Dominique received the maximum sentence of 20 years for aggravated rape. The trial forty-eight other men were found guilty of aggravated rape and two of sexual assault.

The evidence shows how Dominique recruited men raped his then-wife for years on the now-defunct “dating site” Coco.fr, using a chat room called “without her knowledge” where he exchanged photos of an unconscious Gisèle before switching to Skype and texting to arrange a meeting with his partners.

Gisèle testified that she was completely unaware of her husband’s actions. Over time, frequent sedation and sexual abuse began to take a physical toll. Court documents show that her husband accompanied her to several doctor’s visits, during which she complained of memory loss and pelvic pain.

His web of crimes only came to light after Dominique was arrested in a local supermarket in September 2020 for filming customers’ skirts, for which he was convicted. For this crime, Pelicot was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence.

During the upskirt investigation, police officers confiscated his hard drive, laptop and phones and found hundreds of photos and videos of Gisèle being raped, sparking one of the worst sex crime cases in modern French history.