In a case that has shocked France to its core, a 71-year-old former employee of France's state-owned power utility company EDF, went on trial on Monday on charges that he allowed strangers to rape his wife after drugging her.
Apart from the main suspect, 50 other men, recruited online, are also being tried in Avignon. Among the 92 rapes that police have counted, by 72 men, 51 have been identified. The men, all aged between 26 and 74, are accused of raping the 72-year-old woman who was heavily drugged and was not aware of the abuse that went on for 10 years, her lawyers say.
The woman was accompanied by her three children when she came to the court and refused to have the trial behind closed doors because "that’s what her attackers would have wanted".
The defendant, Dominique P., first came under the police's radar in September 2020 after he was caught filming under the skirts of three women. The police then found numerous photos and videos of his wife on his computer in which she was mostly insentient and in a foetal position.
Upon further investigation, police found chats on coco.fr (now shut down), where the defendant recruited strangers to come to their home and have sex with his wife. Dominique P. told the investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilisers, especially Temesta, an anxiety-reducing drug.
The abuse started in Paris in 2011 and continued for many years. The husband also took part in the rapes, filmed them, and encouraged the other men that he invited into his home. Most men participated just once, but some took part up to six times.
Dominique P., who said he was raped by a male nurse when he was nine, was ready to face "his family and his wife".
"He is ashamed of what he did, it’s unforgivable," his lawyer said, adding the case was one of a "sort of addiction".
In addition to the case mentioned above, Dominique P. has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, which he admitted after DNA testing.
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