Two witnesses reportedly refused the offer, understanding that it was rape

The trial of Dominique Pelicot, the main accused in a case of rape under chemical subjugation, continued Tuesday before the Vaucluse criminal court. At the heart of the debates, two witnesses revealed that they had been approached by Dominique Pelicot to have sexual relations with his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged without his knowledge.

These two testimonies reinforced the extent of the accusations against the accused, on trial since September 2 with 49 other men for sexual violence.

“It’s rape, I don’t agree”

Jérôme B., 42, truck driver, said he was contacted by Dominique Pelicot in March 2020 via the libertine site coco.fr. In his statements on the stand, he explained that he had been approached for an unusual arrangement. “He asks me to do gardening work and in exchange, he offers me his wife,” said the witness.

But the latter quickly refused the proposal after Dominique Pelicot explained to him that his wife would be drugged and asleep during the meeting. “He adds that he drugs his wife and offers her to men very often. I tell him that it’s rape and that I don’t agree,” he said. Jérôme B., against whom no charges were brought, never went to the Pelicot home.

The disturbing words of Dominique Pelicot

Another witness, Cyril F., a 48-year-old civil servant, also took the floor to explain that he spoke briefly with Dominique Pelicot on coco.fr, without however going to his home. “Until he told me that his wife would take pills and that she would probably be asleep when I arrived,” he told the court.

Thinking that these were unrealistic comments, Cyril F. preferred to cut the conversation short. “I thought it was a young man talking nonsense, I didn’t think at all that someone could drug his wife,” he added. When a defense lawyer, Me Nadia El Bouroumi, asked him if Dominique Pelicot had explicitly suggested that he participate in a rape, Cyril F. replied: “No, no. »