Berliner Tageblatt - Tearful trauma at Frenchman's trial over recruiting dozens to rape wife

The case against 71-year-old Dominique P. has horrified France, after the appalling allegations were only exposed by chance when he was caught filming up women's skirts in a local supermarket.

The trial in the southern city of Avignon, due to conclude in December, is weighing rape charges against him and 50 other men who he allegedly recruited online to abuse his wife.

The wife -- Gisele P. -- is attending the trial, which she has asked be open to the public, as are their daughter and two sons.

Her lawyers say she was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse that went on for a decade.

Presiding judge Roger Arata, who leads a panel of five judges to issue a verdict in the trial, on its second day coldly read out the main findings of the investigation.

The horrific allegations were first exposed on September 12, 2020 when a security guard apprehended Dominique P. in a supermarket in the town Carpentras for filming customers up their skirts.

Condoms and a camera were found in his pocket. When questioned, Dominique P. said that he had "acted on impulses" that he had "not been able to control".

- 'And I stopped calling you dad' -

Their daughter, who uses the pen name Caroline Darian, left the room shaking with emotion and in tears less than 20 minutes after the start of the hearing.

Arata recounted how naked photomontages of her had been found on Dominique P.'s computer in a folder titled "Around my daughter, naked". Darian collapsed in tears.

Darian left the room trembling, escorted by her two brothers and her lawyer Antoine Camus, but reappeared some twenty minutes later.

Gisele P., wearing a white blouse and carrying a small handbag, remained calm and reserved throughout the proceedings.

At the other end of the courtroom, but directly opposite her, sat her husband, dressed in a grey T-shirt and listening intently. She has commenced divorce proceedings.

Darian in 2022 wrote a book "Et j'ai cesse de t'appeler papa" ("And I stopped calling you dad") about the effect of the discovery of the crimes on the family.

- Online forum -

Eighteen of the accused including Dominique P. are in custody, while 32 other defendants are attending the trial as free men. A 51th man is being judged in absentia.

Besides the husband, there are 72 suspects in the case but only 50 have been tracked down.

Most of them face up to 20 years in jail for aggravated rape if convicted.

During searches investigators came across thousands of photos and videos showing Gisele P. being sexually abused by strangers recruited online on a forum called "Without her knowledge" on the controversial website coco.gg, shut down by the courts since last June.

Dominique P., who appeared on the site under a pseudonym, has claimed he took part "occasionally" in the online forum and that it was "not his habit".

But several discussions were found in which he sometimes used the term "rape" and told potential attackers that administering sleeping pills to his wife allowed him to abuse her by engaging practices she would normally refuse.

He order 450 pills in the space of a year, according to the national health insurance.

Police said they found hundreds of pictures and videos of his wife on Dominique P's computer, visibly unconscious and mostly in the foetal position.

The images are alleged to show dozens of rapes in the couple's home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people around 33 kilometres (20 miles) from Avignon in the Provence region.

G.Schulte--BTB