“FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE”
Past Dominique Pelicot, who has admitted to all the expenses, prosecutors should additionally determine on punishments for the opposite defendants: males aged 26 to 74 and from all walks of life.
“This trial is shaking up our society in our relationship with one another, in probably the most intimate relationships between human beings,” Jean-Francois Mayet, the opposite prosecutor, informed the court docket.
The trial is making French society work “to grasp our wants, our feelings, our needs and above all to have in mind these of others”, he mentioned.
What’s at stake, he added, “just isn’t a conviction or an acquittal” however “to basically change the relations between women and men”.
Many accused argued in court docket that they believed Dominique Pelicot’s declare they have been taking part in a libertine fantasy, through which his then-wife had consented to sexual contact and was solely pretending to be asleep.
Amongst them, 33 have additionally claimed they weren’t of their proper minds after they abused or raped Gisele Pelicot – a defence not backed up by any of the psychological experiences compiled by court-appointed consultants.
“In 2024, we are able to not say ‘since she mentioned nothing, she agreed’,” mentioned Chabaud. “The absence of consent couldn’t be ignored by the defendants.”
Sentencing requests are slated to take three full days within the court docket’s agenda, with prosecutors estimating a median of quarter-hour per defendant.
Most, together with Dominique Pelicot, are charged with aggravated rape.
“The information, and the persona of every accused, have been taken under consideration even in our sentencing calls for,” Mayet added.