The ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot, a number of others found guilty of rape and drug use in France.

A judge in France on Thursday found the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot, who agreed drugging her and repeatedly raping her over the course of almost ten years and invited a number of other men to beat her, guilty of aggravated rape. The 49 men brought by Dominique Pelicot to his home to beat his wife were also convicted on Thursday as part of the same landmark trial.

The suspect who was convicted of torture for many years was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while his fellow prisoners were sentenced to between three and 15 years.

During the trial, Gisèle Pelicot – who insisted that her full name be published and the court the trial was held in public — was praised for her courage and became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France and around the world.

“I want to say a big thank you to all the people who supported me in this difficult time. Your witness, your words touched me a lot and gave me the strength to come back every day in these long days,” Pelicot told reporters outside the courtroom on Thursday.

“I wanted to open the doors of this case last September so that the public can see what is happening. I will never regret this decision. I trust our power, together, to find a better future, where men and women alike can live safely together with mutual respect,” she said.

Roger Arata, the presiding judge at the court in Avignon, south-east France, read the verdicts of Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men convicted of raping his ex-wife in bed at her invitation. Another man is accused of sexual harassment. All men were found guilty, but one had his conviction reduced for rape, and two were hanged.

“The children are disappointed by these low sentences,” one of Pelicot’s family members, who asked not to be named, told French news agency AFP.

Pelicot was greeted when he arrived in court Thursday by crowds of people holding signs with slogans such as: “Thank you for your courage.” She and her daughters sat in the courtroom as the verdicts were read, with their heads against the wall, CBS News partner network BBC News reported.

The trial began on September 2 and, almost every day, Pelicot was face to face with him ex-husbandDominique, or one of the 50 men charged with assaulting him. She emphasized that the videos brought as evidence, made by her ex-husband and showing the men beating her while she appeared to be unconscious, were shown in court.

Her ex-husband was also found guilty of trying to rape a woman named Cillia, the wife of another man, Jean Pierre Marechal, who was one of the suspects, and taking indecent photos of her daughter, Caroline, and her daughters-in-law, Celine and Aurore, reported BBC News. Sitting in court, he showed no emotion when the verdicts were read, according to the BBC. After the decision and sentence, his lawyer said that he will have ten days left to appeal this decision, which he is considering.

The attacks took place between 2011 and 2020, when Dominique Pelicot was arrested. Police found thousands of images and videos of abuse on his computers, which helped lead them to other suspects. Some of the men said in court that they believed the unconscious woman was right, or that her husband’s consent was enough.

“It’s not for us to feel ashamed – it’s for them,” Pelicot said during the hearing, referring to the attackers. “Above all, I express my will and determination to transform this society.”

Pelicot continued to attend hearings throughout the trial, in part, because he “felt that in some way he represented the victims of this type of abuse,” his lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, said before the verdicts were handed down Thursday. “There are too many victims who will go to trial, face their abusers without someone standing outside, lining them up, giving them flowers. So he felt he had to continue to focus, because he didn’t choose them, but he chose. He felt that in some way he was representing the victims, and he felt guilty about that. .”

Controversial French laws

Pelicot’s case sparked protests across France, and there was hope among some protesters that the case could lead to changes in France’s controversial sex-consent laws.

France is introducing a legal age of consent for sex in 2021 after a public outcry over the rape of an 11-year-old schoolgirl by a man who was initially convicted of a minor offence. Since then, having sex with anyone under the age of 15 is considered non-consensual, but French law does not refer to consent in cases involving older victims.

Under French law, rape is defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threats or surprise,” without considering consent, according to the Reuters news agency. Therefore, the prosecutors must show that they have the intention to rape if they want to succeed in court, legal experts told Reuters.

Only 14% of rape allegations in France lead to an official investigation, according to a study by the Institute of Public Policies.

“Why can’t we get cases? The first reason is the law,” French legal expert Catherine Le Magueresse told Reuters. “The law is written in such a way that victims must comply with the belief that the ‘good rapist’ and ‘true rape’: the unknown attacker, the use of violence, and the resistance of the victim. But it is true only in a few cases of rape.”

“I’m trying to understand”

Speaking in court during the trial, Pelicot, 72, spoke of how she thought she was in a loving marriage with her husband and could never have guessed what was going on.

“We were going to have a glass of white wine together. I have never found anything strange about my potatoes,” Pelicot told the court. “We finished eating. Usually if it’s a football game on TV, I let him watch it alone. He brought my ice cream to my bed, where I was. It’s my favorite flavor – raspberry – and I thought: ‘How lucky I am. It’s love.’

He said he had no feeling of being drugged.

“I never felt my heart skip a beat. I didn’t feel anything. I must have gone under immediately. I would wake up in my pajamas,” Pelicot told the court, adding that she sometimes woke up “more tired than usual.” , but I travel a lot and I think that’s it

“I’m trying to understand,” she said, “how the husband, who was a perfect man, could come to this.”

“Nothing will bring him back the 15 years he lost, the 10 years he lived without knowing what happened to him,” said Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, before the verdicts were handed down on Thursday. “He can expect now that justice is done, and then, who can find comfort in someone who will be imprisoned for 10, 15 years, seeing another family destroyed. No one – and, in fact – definitely not him.”

Frank Andrews contributed to this report.