The daughter of a twisted French man on trial for drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of men to rape her stormed out of the courtroom in tears Tuesday after the judge revealed her dad also had nude photos of her on his computer.
Caroline Darian was visibly trembling when she stormed out of the second day of the trial against her 71-year-old dad, Dominique Pélicot, who is accused of filming men raping his wife, Gisele, 72, for years while she was drugged unconscious, according to the Telegraph.
Judge Roger Arata told the court Tuesday that nude photos of Darian were found on her dad’s computer in a file titled, “Around my daughter, naked,” the report said.
Darian stormed out at the mention of the photographs and returned about 20 minutes later, the outlet reported.
Earlier in the week, she told Le Parisien she was overcome with the fear that her father may have invited some of the men to rape her after a picture of her “in someone else’s underwear” was discovered on his computer.
“I’m convinced I was drugged, but he’ll never admit it,” said Darian, who wrote a book about the ordeal, “And I Stopped Calling You Daddy.”
Gisele Pélicot appeared alongside her three children this week to watch her now-estranged husband stand trial in the southern France city of Avignon for the crimes that have shocked the country.
Police believe the wife was unknowingly raped at least 92 times by at least 72 different men.
Of those, they believe they have identified 51 of them, all of whom are also being tried and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. They include a fireman, a prison guard, a nurse and a journalist, the Telegraph noted.
Pélicot recruited the rapists through a website with clear instructions when they came to his home, according to the indictment read out in court.
“Come at night, without perfume or the smell of cigarettes. The men were to undress outside the bedroom, make no noise and leave at the slightest movement or sign that the victim was awake,” the judge told the court, according to the Telegraph.
His wife had “no recollection” of being attacked — and used to describe her husband as a “kind and caring” father and grandfather, the UK paper noted.
Now, “He disgusts me,” she told the judge. “I feel dirty, soiled, betrayed. It’s a tsunami, I’ve been hit by a high-speed train.”
The judge granted Gisele’s request that the proceedings remain open to the public to ensure “complete publicity until the end.”
“She was dreading this moment but is relieved that the hearing is open and that she will not be locked up for four months with her assailants,” said one of her lawyers, Stephane Babonnea.
The case came to light when a security guard caught Pélicot filming up women’s skirts in a shopping center in September 2020.
During an investigation into that, cops found thousands of photos and videos of Gisele unconscious and being raped at the couple’s home in Mazan, a small village in Provence, prosecutors said.
Investigators also found chats on the forum Pélicot used to recruit scores of men to participate in the abuse, as well as messages in which he admitted giving his wife powerful tranquilizers to knock her out before the abuse took place.
Pélicot’s attorney, Béatrice Zavarro, said he felt huge remorse and “recognizes what he has done.”
“He is ashamed of what he has done, it’s unforgivable,” she told reporters, blaming his criminal acts on “a form of addiction.”
Pélicot is expected to be interrogated beginning next Monday. Pélicot has also been charged in a separate case with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991, which he denies, as well as an attempted rape in 1999, which he has admitted after a DNA match, the Telegraph said.
