Main accused in the so-called Mazan rape trial, Dominique Pélicot spoke for the last time this Tuesday. The opportunity to “show humanity”, as he was asked by his children the day before, by giving explanations as to the motive for his crime.
For the 48th day of the hearing, the main accused in the Mazan rape case was invited to speak one last time before the proceedings were definitively closed. If Dominique Pélicot had a word for his children, confiding that he had been able to “measure the damage of annihilation, and […] regret it[r] bitterly”, while this trial was the first time he had seen David, Caroline and Florian again for four years and the start of the affair, the one who is accused of having drugged and orchestrated the rape of his wife by recruited men on the Internet for a decade assured that he had “never touched or [s]children, nor [s]his grandchildren”. During this trial, there was indeed talk of photos of his daughter found in his belongings or even a proposal, made to one of his grandsons, to “play doctor”.
But this Tuesday, November 19, Dominique Pélicot above all tried to provide the court and those close to him with the beginnings of an explanation. How could a father and husband described as impeccable be able to commit such acts? Part of the explanation could be found in his past, he argued. Dominique Pélicot thus revealed that he himself was raped when he was a child. A nurse allegedly abused him while he was in hospital. “When I was 9, I didn’t realize what it was,” he said, his voice trembling.
“It was my fantasy, selfish, without making her suffer”
After that, he claims he was also forced, at the age of 14, to participate in a rape while working on a construction site. “When you put your head in the genitals of a woman like that and you are made to witness the rape of a woman with four people, including one in the mouth and one in the vagina…”, he said -he detailed, as relayed Le Figarocontinuing: “Of course, that doesn’t excuse… But if I managed to do what I did with people who voluntarily accepted, it’s perhaps because of that.”
“It created a crack,” he noted, reporting for his part BFMTV. And Dominique Pélicot added: “I think that this crack that I kept […] is close to that, to what I experienced at 14. The fantasy that I indelicately brought back to life is close to that.”
Before the court, the defendant confided that he had known “two gods”: his mother and his ex-wife, Gisèle Pélicot. While it was often alluded during the trial to the fact that he considered his wife a “saint”, Dominique Pélicot explained: “I was talking about a saint because she was always equal to herself , beneficial.” So why did you drug her and subject her to rape by strangers? “If I came to do what I did through people who voluntarily accepted what I proposed, it is to subdue a rebellious woman,” he said, asserting: “ It was my fantasy, selfish, without making her suffer. Take my mobile whatever you want, but that’s how it is.”