(17 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris – 17 September 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Angela Charlton, The Associated Press:
++OVERLAID IN DIFFERENT PARTS WITH SHOTS 2, 3, 4 THEN 5++
"A very upsetting trial is underway in southern France right now. More than 50 men are on trial accused of raping a woman who was unconscious. She was unconscious because her husband drugged her and invited the men to sexually abuse her. The husband, Dominique Pélicot, testified today for the first time in the trial, and he admitted everything. He called himself a rapist and the other men rapists. Gisèle Pélicot has become a hero to many women in France, because she has had the courage to waive her anonymity in this trial and allow the whole trial to be public. She herself has been appearing every day. She’s spoken a couple of times to the media. She stands in the courthouse security line in the same line right next to the men accused of raping her. She’s also seen as a real symbol in the fight against sexual violence and in calling it out publicly. Her husband’s testimony is not able to be filmed or photographed under French law. But he spoke out today. He spoke about how he was raped as a child by a male nurse he spoke to about an abusive father. At one point, his wife, his ex-wife now, looked at him and told him how difficult it was for her to listen to this, how much she had trusted him entirely. And then he asked for her forgiveness. The husband, Dominique Pélicot, will continue testifying the rest of this week, and the trial is going to go on through December. It’s one of the biggest trials in France in many years."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Avignon, France- 17 September 2024
2. Gisèle Pélicot and her two lawyers walking outside court during lunch break
3. Gisèle Pélicot arrives at court, accompanied by her lawyers and waits to go through security check (in front of her, in the same line queuing, some of the accused wearing hoods and masks are seen) ++CONTINOUS SHOT++
4. Several defendants coming out of courtroom during break, hiding their faces with masks, hoods, caps, sunglasses
5. Gisele Pélicot going back inside courtroom after break
STORYLINE:
A 71-year-old French man admitted in court Tuesday that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed.
His wife of 50 years, who has divorced him since his arrest, also got to speak, telling the court that she feels completely betrayed.
In a trial that has gripped France and raised awareness about sexual violence in the home and beyond, Dominique Pélicot told the court that he also raped his wife, Gisèle Pélicot, and that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,″ Dominique Pélicot testified. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Pélicot’s testimony marked the most important moment yet in a trial that has shocked the world. Although he previously confessed to investigators, his court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of his co-defendants, many of whom deny having raped Gisèle Pélicot, saying her then-husband had manipulated them or that they believed she was consenting.
Many following the case also hope his testimony might help explain why Dominique Pélicot would subject the mother of his three children to such unconscionable abuse.
“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.
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