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A defendant has been found guilty on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her husband – and has had his jail term increased to 10 years.

Retrial Proceedings

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a retrial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A panel of four women and five men, accompanied by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of raping Pelicot in her bedroom in Provence in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a married father, made contact with the victim's husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an internet forum titled “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to rape his wife once he had sedated her into a comatose state.

“We hope the court will say loud and clear that in this country, human rights are also women’s rights – that permission is personal, not delegated,” stated Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Agreement is secured personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Context

The ex-husband, a notorious sex offenders in modern French history, was handed a sentence to two decades in prison last year for sedating his spouse and bringing in numerous individuals to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a period of almost a decade of their marriage.

Numerous other individuals were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the sole individual to challenge his sentence. He was first sentenced to 9 years in prison, a penalty enhanced on Thursday to a decade.

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

Courtroom Details

Dogan had first sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then traveled an hour from his town in the region to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was leaving, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from segregation in prison to temporarily give evidence at the hearing, told the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to assault my wife after I’ve sedated her unbeknownst to her.”

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

The jury in the Nîmes appeals court was shown visual proof of the victim's unconscious figure, sedated and snoring in a comatose state, while a smiling the perpetrator performed assault repeatedly over a timeframe of what police said was three and a half hours. The judge said she had been at danger of death by asphyxiation. The state prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant told the court the footage were simply “sex scenes” and denied it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the residence, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” Dogan stated to the court. “I proceeded because he convinced me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to harm that individual.”

Victim's Response

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by crowds assembled to support her, addressed Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When will you acknowledge you assaulted me? It is unlawful to assault an incapacitated woman. How could I have give you consent? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, became an global icon after she gave up her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, addressing the victim in court, said Dogan’s refusal to take accountability showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. Society is maybe in the process of that, maybe motivated by the collective awareness brought by the exposure of your ordeal.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how rape culture was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor addressed the defendant: “As long as you deny it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an complete unpleasant cultural framework that you are endorsing.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 came to France, where his father worked as a concierge. The court heard that his parent was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis at the age of 10. When he was 17 he was caught by police for dealing drugs and his father kicked him out of home. He was incarcerated in prison for drug dealing in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had undergone periods of living on the streets.

He was married and had a child with special needs, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had repeated intimate relations beyond their marriage. His defence said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. Dogan had told a court psychologist that annually he sought paid sex on his special day. His attorneys told the court he had joint inflammation caused by the anxiety of the first trial.