Gisèle Pelicot is not my adversary, says defence lawyer

Béatrice Zavarro, a diminutive figure in a long black robe and heavy red glasses, who has described herself as the "devil's advocate", stood up in a packed courtroom in Avignon last week to sum up the defence for Dominique Pelicot, on trial for drugging his wife, Gisèle, and arranging more than 50 men to rape her.

- Kim Willsher

What could his lawyer say about the man who has admitted to the charges in the notorious mass rape trial, and whose perversions and depravity have been played out in words and pictures around the world since proceedings opened three months ago?

For the next hour and 15 minutes, Zavarro trod a fine legal line.

She did not try to defend the indefensible; she did not seek to mitigate the actions of the man nicknamed the Monster of Mazan, after the Provençal village where the couple lived and most of the 200 rapes took place. She did not mention the maximum 20-year prison sentence the public prosecutor has demanded for Pelicot, except to suggest the judges might "stray" from this request.

Instead, she sought to explain the inexplicable: what made a husband and father, who said he spoiled his three children and adored his wife, invite the men in the dock with him to rape and sexually abuse her?