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A defendant has been found guilty on retrial of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and was given his jail term raised to a decade.

Higher Court Case

Dogan, forty-four, an out-of-work construction worker, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, underwent a retrial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her bedroom in Provence in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a family man, reached out to the victim's then husband, the husband, in an digital platform called “without her consent”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had sedated her into a deep sleep.

“We hope the jury will declare that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that consent is individual, not transferred,” said Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, her legal representative. “Permission is secured personally and not by proxy from a husband.”

Context

The husband, a notorious sex offenders in modern French history, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his spouse and inviting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and Dogan was the only man to contest his conviction. He was originally sentenced to nine years in prison, a punishment enhanced on Thursday to ten years.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had initially sent the husband graphic images and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to rape the victim, after notifying his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from isolation in prison to briefly provide testimony at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “incapacitated” and he told to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her consent.”

The proceedings became a central issue for a broader debate on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to say he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his behavior had been permissible.

The panel in the higher court was shown recorded footage of Gisèle Pelicot’s unconscious figure, comatose and snoring in a comatose state, while a smiling the perpetrator engaged in violation repeatedly over a period of what authorities reported was several hours. The court official said she had been at peril of death by choking. The prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been incapacitated and had not given permission.

Accused's Testimony

Dogan told the court the footage were simply “intimate moments” and disputed it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was influenced by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan stated to the court. “I proceeded because he persuaded me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to hurt that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by onlookers gathered to support her, said to the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you acknowledge you raped me? It is unlawful to assault an unaware woman. At what point did I give you permission? At no time.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

Sie, speaking to the victim in court, said Dogan’s failure to take blame showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The public is maybe in the process of that, perhaps propelled by the public consciousness brought by the exposure of your situation.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how rape culture was still widespread in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “Now we must change rape culture to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor said to the defendant: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an complete unpleasant societal structure that you are upholding.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his father worked as a caretaker. The evidence indicated that his parent was aggressive and that Dogan began using drugs at the age of ten. When Dogan was 17 he was stopped by police for selling narcotics and his father evicted him the residence. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his young adulthood and had worked as a builder but had experienced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had regular sexual encounters outside their marriage. His defence said this was his way of coping with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had informed a mental health expert that once a year he sought commercial sex on his birthday. His attorneys informed the court he had a medical condition caused by the stress of the initial proceedings.