Gisele Pelicot returned to court in France today to face one of her rapists as he appealed his conviction, but her daughter was nowhere to be seen after the two women stopped speaking following a rift during the first trial.
The 72-year-old, whose story shocked the world, was surrounded by police, her lawyers and her son Florian as she arrived at the courthouse in Nimes.
The only rapist left challenging his conviction for abusing Gisele is claiming he was 'trapped' by her husband.
Last year, 44-year-old Husamettin Dogan was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Gisele after her husband, Dominique, invited him via an online chatroom to abuse her while she was unconscious.
While Gisele was accompanied by relatives as she made her way into the court, her daughter, Caroline Darian, did not attend. The pair have not spoken since the first trial, when Darian accused her mother of turning the tragedy into a 'spectacle.'
Once a close supporter, she stood by her mother through the harrowing 2024 trial of Dominique Pelicot, Gisele's husband and the man branded the Monster of Avignon.
He was jailed for 20 years for drugging, raping and arranging for dozens of men to assault his wife over nearly a decade.
But behind the courtroom scenes, Darian said she felt pushed aside and hurt by her mother's actions.
The 46-year-old communications manager from Paris has since spoken publicly about their falling out, describing how she felt 'abandoned' as her mother's case gained worldwide attention.
She said the breaking point came when her mother told her to 'stop making a spectacle of yourself' after she shouted insults at her father as his sentence was read out.
She had yelled: 'You will die alone like a dog in jail!' in fury at the man she says destroyed both their lives.
Although she never spoke of it during the trial, Darian later revealed she believes she, too, was abused by her father.
Gisele Pelicot returned to court once again to hear the appeal of one of the men convicted of raping her. She was accompanied by her son, Florian
Gisele's daughter, Caroline Darian, who had supported her during the first trial, was nowhere to be found during today's hearing
She said she came to that realisation after police discovered disturbing material on his computer, including thousands of explicit videos and images of Gisele being attacked, and a deleted folder named 'My Daughter Naked.'
In that file, officers found two photos of Darian, then in her thirties, asleep in beige underwear she did not recognise.
'I do not sleep in that position. I have never seen that specific pair of underwear before, and I would never have gone to bed dressed like that,' she told investigators.
Convinced by what she saw, Darian told the court that she too had 'probably been raped and abused' by her father.
She said her mother refused to accept the possibility, assuring her: 'Your father is incapable of such a thing.'
Darian said she and her brothers begged their father to tell the truth about the photos, but he always denied it.
She believes her mother could have persuaded him to confess, but instead stayed silent. 'And that, I can never forgive her for, never,' she told The Telegraph.
After the trial, as Gisele became a global symbol for survivors of sexual violence, Darian said she felt forgotten and erased from the story.
'Gisèle was certainly raped. She was chemically subdued, of course. The only difference between Gisèle and me is that for her, there is proof. For me, it's an absolute tragedy,' she told the court.
She added that despite her mother's fame, 'my mother isn't an icon - not to me.'
Darian said her pain is 'two-fold' because while her mother chose Dominique as a husband, she had no choice in being his daughter.
She said she has accepted that they will never be close again. She added that if she were to bump into her at a supermarket, she would just say hello and goodbye.
Gisele Pelicot was seen arriving in a French court today. She was not mandated to attend today's hearing, but chose to do so
Caroline Darian during a hearing for her father's rape case in November 2024. She said she felt 'abandoned' during the first trial
Gisele is now living with her new partner, a former Air France steward named Jean-Loup, but Darian said she failed to 'fulfil her contract as a mother' to her.
While her daughter kept her distance, Pelicot returned to court to confront one of the men who violated her.
Dogan, one of 51 men found guilty of rape at Dominique's invitation, argues that he was misled into believing she had consented. His defence team said he plans to appeal both his conviction and his sentence during the trial in Nimes, which runs from Monday to Thursday.
'He maintains that he never went to the couple's home with the intention of raping anyone,' one of his lawyers, Jean-Marc Darrigade, said. 'He is deeply affected by the fact that he could be labelled as a rapist.'
Darrigade said Dogan's fight is not with the main plaintiff, whom he 'respects deeply,' but with Dominique, 'the cynical man who trapped him.'
Gisele was not required to attend today's hearing, but chose to be there. Dogan, who appeared at the first trial using a walking stick, is still technically a free man as his appeal has suspended his sentence.
The Turkish man, who has arthritis and appeared at the first trial using a walking stick, is technically still a free man as his appeal has put his prison sentence on hold.
'I'm not a rapist,' the construction worker said during the first trial. 'This is too much for me to bear. He's her husband. I never thought that guy could do this to his wife.'
Pictured: Painter and decorator Husamettin Dogan, 44, at the court today. He was sentenced to nine years in prison last year for raping Pelicot after her then husband, Dominique Pelicot, invited him via an online chatroom to abuse her while she was unconscious
Dogan visited the Pelicot family home once, in June 2019.
During the first trial, he was at first not prepared to accept the charges against him.
He said Dominique sent him a message saying he was part of a sexually adventurous couple and they were seeking someone to take part in sex while his wife 'pretended to sleep'.
He says he received a message, supposedly from Pelicot, saying she agreed to him coming over. Dogan then headed over to their home in the small southern town of Mazan that same evening, where he was led into the main bedroom.
'I started foreplay, I saw she didn't react. I said, 'She's dead, your wife.' (Dominique Pelicot) said, 'No, you're imagining it.' He penetrated her and she lifted up her head a little,' he said.
Dogan said they continued for at least half an hour, until he clearly heard Gisele Pelicot snoring. He then decided to leave, he said.
Reminded by one of the judges of the definition of rape - an act committed 'through violence, constraint, threat or surprise' - he initially conceded.
'I admit it was rape,' he said.
But at the end of the trial in the southern town of Avignon, Dogan again said he was not a rapist.
His lawyer said the appeal hearing would give his client more time to present his case.
'They found that Mrs Pelicot was being controlled' by her then husband, he said. 'Can't we also conceive something similar for the few minutes during which Dogan faced this exceptionally perverse man who mastered all tricks of persuasion?
'I don't think it's offensive to discuss it a second time,' said Darrigade.
Gisele seated inside the court among lawyers as she awaits the hearing
Outside court, a crowd gathered in support of Pelicot holding up signs that read 'Stop rape culture' and 'Support to Gisele'
Dominique Pelicot, 72, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping and organising the mass rape of his wife
Initially, 17 of the 51 convicted men said they would appeal against the verdict, but 16 gradually dropped out, leaving only one appeal.
Pelicot's lawyer, Antoine Camus, said she would have preferred not to face the ordeal of attending another trial but would be present at the four-day trial at Nîmes court of appeal.
'She will be there to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no such thing as a small rape,' Camus told Agence France-Presse.
Dominique was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging his former wife and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her while unconscious.
He had had laced his wife's food and drink with tranquilisers to render her unconscious before inviting men he met online to take part in sordid rape and abuse fantasies that he acted out with them and filmed in their retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.
The images and footage were only discovered when he was caught in September 2020 upskirting women at a local supermarket, with a subsequent police search of his home revealing the thousands of photos of his wife.
Now serving a prison sentence in solitary confinement, Dominique will appear as a witness at the appeal court trial. He is expected to repeat what he said at the first trial: 'I am a rapist - like everyone else in this room.'
Following the brave waiver of her anonymity during last year's trial, Pelicot has gone on to become a feminist icon across France and the globe.
The former logistics manager, had insisted the first rape trial in 2024 be held in public to raise awareness of drug-induced rape and abuse. 'It's not for us to have shame, it's for them,' she said in court.
[SRC] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15166971/Gisele-Pelicot-returns-court-face-rapist-appealing-conviction-no-sign-daughter-two-women-fell-trial.html
