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A defendant has been found guilty on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot after she was sedated by her husband – and was given his prison sentence raised to ten years.

Higher Court Case

The defendant, 44, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A jury of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her residence in the south of France in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a married father, reached out to the victim's spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was looking for men to enter his residence to rape his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

We expect the panel will declare that in this country, human rights are also women’s rights – that consent is personal, not transferred,” said Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, Antoine Camus. “Consent is received personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sexual predators in recent French history, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and soliciting multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found culpable in a notable trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to appeal against his sentence. He was first handed a term to 9 years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had contended he should serve twelve years, because he “completely denies to take any responsibility”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent Dominique Pelicot sexually explicit photos and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was leaving, the testimony revealed.

The ex-husband, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily provide testimony at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve sedated her without her consent.”

The trial became a focus point for a broader debate on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to say he was not guilty and had not perpetrated assault, contending that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the bedroom, his actions had been acceptable.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was presented with visual proof of the victim's unresponsive form, comatose and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a grinning Dogan committed rape repeatedly over a duration of what authorities reported was three and a half hours. The presiding judge said she had been at peril of death by asphyxiation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unconscious and had not consented.

Accused's Testimony

Dogan stated to the court the videos were simply “sexual encounters” and rejected it was violation. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He declared the court: “I never raped.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the home, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I attempted to cease,” the accused stated to the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I never wanted to injure that lady.”

Survivor's Statement

The victim, who was cheered upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds gathered to stand with her, addressed Dogan in court: “You fail to comprehend. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It is illegal to rape an unaware woman. When did I ever give you agreement? At no time.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an global icon after she gave up her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, addressing the victim in court, said the defendant's failure to take blame showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is maybe in the process of that, possibly driven by the collective awareness brought by the exposure of your case.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a culture of consent.”

Sie addressed Dogan: “As long as you reject it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete disturbing social system that you are upholding.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five came to France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began consuming marijuana aged ten. When he was seventeen he was stopped by police for selling narcotics and his father kicked him out of home. He was incarcerated in prison for drug dealing in his early 20s and had worked as a builder but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was wed and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the primary guardian for, as his wife worked in a educational cafeteria. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had frequent extramarital activities outside their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his stressful life. Dogan had informed a evaluator that once a year he engaged in paid sex on his special day. His legal representatives informed the court he had a medical condition resulting from the stress of the original case.