Gisele Pelicot says ‘never’ gave consent to accused rapist

Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist hero in a mass rape trial last year, testified in court on Wednesday, telling the one man who still denies raping her that she “never” gave him her consent.

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The 72-year-old’s former husband has admitted to drugging her with sedatives and inviting dozens of strangers to rape and abuse her over nearly a decade in a case that shocked the world.

A French court handed her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, 72, the maximum term of 20 years in jail last year. He and 49 other men convicted in the case are not appealing their sentences.

But one man, 44-year-old Husamettin Dogan, has maintained his innocence, drawing the woman who publicly defied her abusers back into court.

At the beginning of the original trial, she famously argued that it should be the perpetrators of sexual violence, not the victims, who should be ashamed.

Pelicot has been greeted with applause at each of her arrivals in court since the trial opened earlier this week in the southern city of Nimes.

On Wednesday, she confronted Dogan in court.