A woman whose husband is accused of drugging her and recruiting dozens of men online to rape her while she was unconscious gave powerful testimony against him in a French court on Thursday, as she seeks a public reckoning for his alleged crimes.
Gisle Plicot, 72, stood before her now-ex-husband, Dominique Plicot, and some of the 50 other men charged with raping her.
During an unrelated investigation in 2020, police retrieved photographs and video of Plicot being raped from her husbands laptop and other devices. Plicot said she had been unaware of the near-decade of alleged abuse until police showed her the images.
I only wanted one thing and that was to disappear, Plicot testified about that moment, The Times reported .
But now, four years after the abuse, Plicot wants the world to know what happened to her. She objected to a request by the prosecutor and the defendants lawyers to hold the trial behind closed doors, The Guardian reported .
Plicot hopes to raise awareness about date rape drugs and to shift the blame and shame from survivors to their attackers, her lawyers say.
[She] believes that she has no reason to hide, attorney Stphane Babonneau said in a hearing Monday . No one can imagine that my client will find any satisfaction in exposing what she has suffered. She wants this hearing to be open so that justice can be done in public.
The case has drawn international media coverage, and one French reporter in the courtroom who sketched Plicot on Thursday described her incredible dignity and strength.
Dominique Plicot admitted that he drugged his wife with powerful tranquilizers and used a messaging website to invite at least 80 men to rape her between 2011 and 2020, The Times reported . He had the men wait nearby until his wife passed out before letting them inside, investigators said he told them, and instructed them to undress in the kitchen, according to The Washington Post . He told them not to use cologne or tobacco but did not require them to use condoms, he told investigators.
When asked earlier this week in court if he was guilty of the drugging and attacks, he replied, Yes, The Guardian reported .
Though Plicot said she has no memory of any of the alleged assaults, she described suffering numerous symptoms, including unexplained blackouts, related to the sedatives her husband allegedly gave her. She said she consulted several doctors because she believed she might have Alzheimers disease, The Times and The Telegraph reported, but she was never diagnosed with an illness. She learned after her husbands arrest that she had contracted four sexually transmitted infections.
Plicot was sexually assaulted about 200 times half of them by her husband while she was unconscious, the BBC reported . The police obtained 20,000 photos and videos of the alleged rapes on a USB drive belonging to Dominique Plicot, according to The Guardian .
The footage was discovered during a police raid of the Plicots home after he was caught filming women under their skirts at a local supermarket.
Investigators said they also found nude images of the Plicots daughter, now 45, that her father had taken in 2013 while she slept at the familys home, The Times reported .
She and her two brothers sat with their mother during the trial, which is expected to last until mid-December.
Plicot and the other men face up to 20 years in prison if they are found guilty of aggravated rape.
Gisle Plicot said that despite her calm demeanor, she is anguished by the ordeal, The Telegraph reported .
When people see me, they say: Shes a strong woman. The facade looks solid, but inside, its a pile of ruins. Everything needs to be rebuilt.
Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website .
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