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A man has been found guilty on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and received his incarceration period extended to a decade.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his first conviction last year, experienced a appeal hearing this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of nine jurors, joined by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her home in Provence in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a married father, connected with the victim's husband at the time, the husband, in an internet forum named “without her knowledge”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to enter his residence to assault his wife once he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

“We hope the panel will declare that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not transferred,” said the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Permission is secured personally and not through someone else from a husband.”

Context

The ex-husband, among the most severe sex offenders in modern French history, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his spouse and bringing in multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the town of the village of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their union.

Fifty other men were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the only man to contest his conviction. He was originally handed a term to nine years in prison, a penalty enhanced on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had contended he should serve twelve years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had initially sent Dominique Pelicot graphic images and then traveled an hour from his village in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was stepping out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to temporarily provide testimony at the hearing, told the court that Dogan had known his wife had been “sedated” and he told to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her consent.”

The courtroom became a focus point for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to claim he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, contending that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the residence, his actions had been justifiable.

The jury in the higher court was displayed video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, comatose and breathing heavily in a comatose state, while a smiling Dogan committed rape repeatedly over a duration of what investigators stated was 3.5 hours. The court official said she had been at danger of fatal outcome by asphyxiation. The state prosecution said there was no question that she had been unconscious and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant stated to the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and disputed it was rape. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not rape. He stated the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said the victim's husband had allowed him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan told the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to harm that lady.”

Victim's Response

The survivor, who was applauded upon leaving court each day by crowds present to back her, said to the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you violated me? It’s a crime to assault an incapacitated woman. When did I ever give you agreement? Never.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an global icon after she relinquished her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

The prosecutor, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s failure to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. Society is possibly in the midst of that, possibly driven by the collective awareness brought by the exposure of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

Sie said to the defendant: “While you deny it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete sordid social system that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of five relocated to France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The evidence indicated that his father was violent and that the defendant began consuming marijuana at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by authorities for selling narcotics and his parent kicked him out the residence. He spent time in prison for narcotics offenses in his young adulthood and had worked as a laborer but had undergone periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the primary guardian for, as his spouse worked in a educational cafeteria. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had frequent sexual encounters beyond their union. His legal team said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. Dogan had informed a mental health expert that annually he engaged in transactional encounters on his special day. His legal representatives told the court he had joint inflammation caused by the pressure of the initial proceedings.