Over ten years, he drugged his wife and let at least 70 men recruited online rape her.
In December, French Dominique Pelicot, 72, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
There, in the cell, the daughter hopes that the father will die.
Caroline Darian remembers the Monday evening in November 2020 when her mother Gisèle Pelicot called her.
– She said that she had discovered that my father Dominique had drugged her for about ten years to let different men rape her, says the daughter in an exclusive interview with BBC Radio.
– In that moment, I missed out on a normal life, says Darian.
Caroline Darian, who is now 46 years old, remembers screaming and crying when she heard what her father had done to her mother.
– It was like an earthquake. A tsunami.
The police showed pictures – of her
In the days that followed, Darian and her two brothers, Florian and David, traveled to the south of France where their parents lived. They wanted to be there for their mother, whose husband – as Darian puts it – was “one of the worst sexual predators in decades”.
Shortly thereafter, Darian herself was called in to the police, where she would have her world shattered once more.
The police showed her two pictures they had found on her father’s computer. The images depicted an unconscious woman lying on a bed, wearing only a t-shirt and panties.
Darian didn’t recognize himself at first.
– Then the police said: “Look, you have the same brown mark on your cheek… it’s you”.
Unlike her mother’s case, there is no evidence of what Dominique Pelicot may have done to Caroline Darian, but she is convinced that her father drugged her.
“He is a dangerous man”
Now Darian has to come to terms with the reality that she is the daughter of both the perpetrator and the victim – something she calls “a terrible burden”.
– When I look back, I don’t really remember what kind of father I thought he was. Now I only see a criminal, the sex offender he is, she says.
– He is a dangerous man. There is no way he can get out of it. No chance.
Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the historic mass rape trial that lasted three and a half months. 50 men whom Dominique Pelicot recruited online to rape his unconscious wife were also sentenced to prison terms.
– I hope my father dies in prison, says Caroline Darian to the BBC.