‘I’m looking for a pervert accomplice to abuse my sleeping wife’.
That is just one of a torrent of depraved messages sent by Dominique Pelicot to dozens of men he invited to sexually abuse his wife Gisele – each episode of which he meticulously curated and catalogued over a period of nine years.
The 72-year-old Frenchman – dubbed the ‘Monster of Avignon’ – has confessed to orchestrating the sick rape ring in which he used an online chat room to source a slew of ‘recruits’ to take part in his twisted fantasies.
Once an appropriate accomplice had been vetted and primed, Mr Pelicot would drug his wife with powerful tranquilisers and invite the stranger to their family home to defile the paralysed, snoring victim for the camera.
Police uncovered more than 20,000 photos and images of Gisele being sexually assaulted by a total of 72 strangers – 50 of whom have been identified – as she lay comatose in bed.
It was from those officers in 2020, almost a decade after her torturous ordeal began in 2011, that Gisele learned the dark truth.
For years she had witnessed her health deteriorating, her worsening memory loss leading her to believe she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease while she battled what seemed to be a growing abundance of gynaecological problems.
Now more than four years after Mr Pelicot was first arrested for filming up the skirts of female shoppers in a supermarket, Gisele’s abusive spouse and his co-accused are set to face justice.
With the court in Avignon set to deliver its verdict this week, the following snapshot of just some of the messages he exchanged with his wife’s abusers have been revealed.
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Gisele Pelicot and one of her lawyers Stephane Babonneau (L) leave the Avignon courthouse after hearing the defence’s final plea
Dominique Pelicot, who has allegedly drugged and raped his then-wife Gisele Pelicot, appears with his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro at the courthouse in Avignon, France, December 16, 2024
The disturbing messages, seen by CNN after gaining access to French police reports, were found to have been sent in an online chatroom known for glorifying sexual violence, on Skype and over text.
The chilling conversations have served as key evidence in the major case against Pelicot and the 50 co-defendants hunted down by French cops.
Using the gruesome chatroom website Coco.fr – which has now been shut down – Pelicot, under several pseudonyms, would exchange messages with men he would later enlist to abuse his wife.
Within the website, Pelicot would actively engage in conversation with members in a forum titled ‘without her knowledge’.
It was on this channel, over a decade-long period, the elderly man would find his accomplices and invite them to the family home in Mazan, France, to allegedly rape his wife while she was drugged unconscious.
‘I’m looking for a pervert accomplice to abuse my sleeping wife,’ Pelicot had written on his account.
‘You have to be clean without aftershave, no long dirty nails’.
Gisele’s abusers, most from within a 50 mile radius of the Pelicots’ home, were seemingly ordinary men from all walks of life and of all ages.
There was veteran chief fireman, 57, who protested in court at being locked up after spending ‘a lifetime saving people’. Police also found naked pictures of children on his computer following his arrest.
A Moroccan-born hospital nurse screamed his innocence before a video of him assaulting Madame Pelicot while she lay motionless was played in court.
Gisele Pelicot leaves after a hearing with the defense’s final arguments in the trial of her former partner Dominique Pelicot
This court sketch created on October 11, 2024, shows defendant Dominique Pelicot (C) looking up in front of his former partner Gisele Pelicot (R) during his trial
Dominque Pelicot (pictured) is accused of drugging his ex wife Gisele and inviting dozens of men to rape her while he watched and filmed them over a decade long period of hell
A successful builder told the court he had fallen into a spiral of depression and alcoholism following the death of his son in a car crash. He added he remembered very little about his encounter with Madame Pelicot.
And a retired marine fire-fighter complained he was lonely.
The youngest accused is now 27, while the oldest is now 74.
Police reports have revealed that initial contact between Pelicot and his accomplices were made on Coco, before they moved on to Skype where he would show the stranger a glimpse of his unconscious wife on video.
An abuser in the message channel was seen asking Pelicot questions about Gisele’s state, attempting to confirm that there was no possibility the wife would wake.
‘Do you get her tested from time to time? Sure she’s clean? She has no idea?,’ they ask Pelicot.
His responses to this were particularly disturbing.
‘No, she puts it down to tiredness. You’re like me. You love rape mode,’ Pelicot said, ‘and abusive, perverse games’.
He goes on to reveal he is ‘about to dose her’ and explains the pair will have to wait an hour for the drug to kick in before the abuse can begin.
The series of messages also exposed how Pelicot would send images as attachments of Gisele passed out, as well as intimate photos and footage of her being raped.
One message seen in the chat log from an abuser reads: ‘Has the sleeping pill started working?’
To which Pelicot responds with an image of his snoozing wife.
In a disturbing response, the abuser expresses his admiration for Pelicot’s actions and shares their desire to do the same to their partner.
This court sketch created at the Avignon courthouse, south-eastern France, on November 27, 2024, shows Beatrice Zavarro (right), lawyer of defendant Dominique Pelicot (centre), addressing the court during the trial
Gisele Pelicot speaks during the trial of her husband with 50 co-accused at the courthouse in Avignon
The only defendant likely to receive the maximum sentence of 20 years is Pelicot himself, who has been dubbed ‘The Monster of Avignon’
The abuser says: ‘I don’t know how you do this but I dream of doing the same to my wife and sharing her with accomplices like you’.
One defendant on trial hasn’t been accused of raping Gisele, but has been charged with drugging his own wife and inviting Pelicot over to rape her, court documents have shown.
After speaking via Skype, the third phase would involve moving on to text messaging.
These texts would appear to involve the further stages of planning the meet-up, discussing details of times for the abuser to arrive, and the state Gisele was in.
‘I don’t know whether I will try to have her f**ked this evening. Will you come if I do?,’ one message from Pelicot reads.
‘To f**k her?,’ the abuser asks. ‘In theory yes, at that hour I shouldn’t be asleep… but it can’t be too late’.
Pelicot then goes on to explain that he will be ‘dosing’ his wife shortly, and tells the online stranger to ‘plan to come tonight around 3am’.
‘One hour after taking the meds she is completely asleep. I don’t understand why we have to wait four hours?,’ the abuser asks.
Pelicot chillingly responds: ‘The longer we wait, the deeper she sinks into sleep’.
Gisele has testified in court that she was completely unaware of her husband’s actions for decades, but over time, the sedation and frequent sexual abuse began to take a physical toll on her.
Pelicot had gone with his wife on a number of doctor’s visits where she complained of memory loss and pelvic pain, court documents have stated.
But Pelicot’s atrocities were only brought to light after he was arrested in a nearby supermarket in September 2020 for filming upskirt videos of female customers.
Gisele has held her head high as she heard and watched films covertly taken by her husband of 50 years in which she was abused at least 90 times by strangers he had invited into their home
Gisele Pelicot congratulated by women outside the Avignon courthouse after the prosecution concluded its case amid the trial of her husband Dominique Pelicot
A courtroom sketch depicts Ms Pelicot and her ex-husband on September 17, 2024
He was later convicted for this, bringing his vile crimes against his wife to light after carrying out decades of abuse.
As French police investigated the upskirting incident, they confiscated his hard-drive, laptop, and phones where they found some 20,000 lurid images and images of his wife being violated in the marital bed on computer files and mobile phones.
The following month, while returning home from Paris where she had been looking after her grandchildren, detectives asked Gisele to come to the police station.
At first, she did not recognise the woman lying on the bed unconscious being abused in the photograph that the policeman showed her.
Then she saw it was herself and that she had been used by her husband of 50 years in the depraved sex scenes he filmed.
‘That day will be seared in my memory for ever,’ Gisele recently told the court.
‘It was a scene of barbarism. I was in a state of shock.
This became the driving force behind what has become one of the most horrific sex offences cases in modern French history.
The bravery of Pelicot’s victim wife, in allowing her identity to be revealed around the world – and the dignity with which she conducted herself throughout the trial – has seen the case become a cause célèbre for campaigners against sexual violence.
Gisele has held her head high as she heard and watched films covertly taken by her husband of 50 years in which she was abused at least 90 times by strangers he had invited into their home.
Having waived her legal right to anonymity in order to ensure the case received the maximum amount of publicity, the 72-year-old grandmother has refused to be shamed – but instead repeatedly directed any shame at her abusers.
Dominique Pelicot, the so-called, Monster of Avignon, arriving at court for the trial
Mr Pélicot depicted appearing at the courthouse in Avignon on September 11
The slogan which reads ‘Gisele, Women thank you’ is seen on a city wall during the trial of Dominique Pelicot, on October 23, 2024
In an electrifying 90-minute testimony, she told the hushed Avignon court on Monday: ‘I was sacrificed on the altar of vice.
‘My body might have been warm, but I was like a dead person.
‘I was a dead woman, and these men take advantage of me, they defile me, they treat me like a bin bag.
‘They didn’t rape me with a gun or knife to their heads – they raped me in full consciousness.
‘They treated me like a ragdoll.
‘It is unbearable, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to get up [off the floor] again.’
Pelicot has admitted the rape of a young estate agent in the Paris suburb of Villeparisis in 1999 but denies being involved in the murder of another estate agent Sophie Narne in another Paris suburb eight years earlier and other similar cases.
The Pelicot case in terms of number of defendants is not the largest sex crime case in French history – in that regard it is eclipsed by the child-sex rings that operated in the city of Angers in the early 2000s.
But the globally high profile trial has meant that it is almost certainly the most notorious.
All 51 defendants are presumed innocent until the verdicts, expected on December 19.
The public prosecutor has requested jail sentences from four to 20 years, with the maximum sentence of 20 years demanded for Pelicot.
