Defendant claims ‘uncontrollable sexual urges’ in French mass rape trial

In a mass rape trial that has shocked France, one of the defendants told the Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon on Wednesday that he couldn’t control his sexual urges during six instances of raping a woman who had been drugged into unconsciousness.

Jerome V., 46, a former supermarket worker, is one of 51 men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot, now 71, over nearly a decade. The assaults were allegedly orchestrated by her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, who drugged her with anxiety medication between 2011 and 2020 and invited men to their home to rape her.

Jerome admitted to aggravated rape charges and is one of 18 defendants currently in custody. He claimed that after first visiting the Pelicot home in 2020, he couldn’t resist the influence of Dominique.

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Caught in Dominique’s web: Jerome’s dark spiral of obsession

Jerome explained that he met Dominique on a now-closed chat site, Coco.fr, where he shared explicit images of Gisele. Jerome admitted the photos had a strong effect on him. Although he wanted to escape the situation, he kept returning.

Between March and June 2020, Jerome visited the Pelicot home six times, admitting that he felt powerless to stop. He also confessed that he feared Dominique might publicly release photos of him committing the assaults.

“I did not go back because the ‘rape mode’ suited me. I could not control my sexuality,” insisted Jerome.

Dominique had filmed much of the abuse of his wife. This practice later allowed police to identify many of the men suspected of raping her after his arrest when he was caught taking pictures up women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020.

Psychologists testified that Jerome was “weak,” “naive”, and “lacked assertiveness.”

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