How Gisele Pelicot's rape trial shamed 'Mr Everyman'

Pelicot’s message – that she and other victims of sexual abuse have no reason to feel ashamed – has reverberated beyond France, writes Crime Correspondent Amy-Clare Martin

-  Amy-Clare Martin

Sitting across a courtroom from the husband who drugged and raped her for a decade, along with the 50 other men he invited to join in the attacks, Gisèle Pelicot was the epitome of dignity.

After bravely choosing to waive her right to anonymity, the grandmother has looked each of her rapists in the eye during a gruelling three-month public trial that horrified the world.

The 72-year-old’s remarkable courage in the face of unfathomable abuse and her simple message – that she and other victims of sexual crimes have no reason to feel ashamed – has inspired conversations about rape culture across the globe as she became a symbol of the struggle against sexual violence.

Each day, scores of women queued outside the courtroom in Avignon, France, to applaud Gisèle as she entered. She told the trial she wants women who have been raped to know that “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them”.

Yesterday, she watched as the man she had once trusted the most, her husband of 50 years Dominique Pelicot, was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years as five judges returned their verdicts at Avignon’s Palais de Justice. Afterwards, he sat down and sobbed.

He recruited complete strangers in an online chatroom to rape her while she was unconscious. Fifty men stood trial alongside Pelicot: 47 were found guilty of rape, two were found guilty of attempted rape and two guilty of sexual assault. They were jailed for a total of 428 years.

Sitting opposite her rapists, Gisèle sometimes nodded her head as a judge took over an hour to announce verdicts and sentences against all 51 of her abusers.

Outside, crowds cheered and chanted “Merci Gisèle” as she emerged from the hearing, later telling supporters she never regretted making the decision to hold her trial in public.