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A defendant has been found guilty on appeal of raping Gisèle Pelicot following she was drugged unconscious by her then-husband – and received his incarceration period increased to ten years.

Appeal Trial

The defendant, 44, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a appeal hearing this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A jury of nine jurors, joined by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her bedroom in Provence in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that Dogan, a married father, made contact with Gisèle Pelicot’s husband at the time, the husband, in an online chatroom titled “without her consent”, where Pelicot was looking for men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had sedated her into a comatose state.

“We hope the court will say loud and clear that in this society, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that consent is personal, not delegated,” said the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Permission is secured personally and not via a representative from a spouse.”

Background

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sexual predators in recent French history, was given a prison term to two decades in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and soliciting multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the town of the village of Mazan over a span of many years of their union.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the only man to contest his sentence. He was originally given a sentence to nine years in prison, a penalty increased on Thursday to a decade.

The state's attorney, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “completely denies to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had initially sent the husband graphic images and then traveled an hour from his village in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was brought from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily provide testimony at the retrial, told the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a wider discussion on sexual violence norms in society as the defendant continued to claim he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, stating that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the bedroom, his actions had been acceptable.

The panel in the higher court was shown video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, comatose and snoring in a comatose state, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape on several occasions over a duration of what authorities reported was several hours. The presiding judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by choking. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unconscious and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan informed the court the recordings were simply “sexual encounters” and denied it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He stated the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was influenced by the husband. “I tried to halt,” the accused informed the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

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

Pelicot's Words

The survivor, who was supported upon departing the trial each day by crowds gathered to back her, said to Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When are you going to recognise you violated me? It is unlawful to assault an unaware woman. How could I have give you agreement? Not once.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an global icon after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s refusal to take blame showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is perhaps in the midst of that, maybe driven by the collective awareness spurred by the publication of your situation.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “It is imperative to change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor said to Dogan: “For as much as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an whole disturbing societal structure that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a concierge. The testimony revealed that his parent was violent and that the defendant began consuming marijuana aged 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was caught by authorities for drug trafficking and his parent kicked him out the residence. He served time in prison for drug dealing in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had undergone 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 testimony revealed his wife did not know he had frequent extramarital activities outside their marriage. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. Dogan had informed a evaluator that each year he engaged in paid sex on his special day. His legal representatives informed the court he had arthritis caused by the stress of the initial proceedings.