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The daughter of the convicted French rapist Dominique Pelicot has filed a legal complaint against her father accusing him of drugging and sexually abusing her, months after he was jailed for drugging and raping her mother, Gisèle Pelicot.
Caroline Darian, 46, believes she was sedated and sexually assaulted or raped by her father over a period of potentially 10 years between 2010 and 2020, when she was in her 30s. She said she had filed a legal complaint for sexual abuse with the prosecutor “as a message to all victims” that “you must never give up”.
Gisèle Pelicot became a feminist hero last year for insisting on a public trial for her ex-husband who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of men to rape her when she was unconscious in her home in the south of France over almost a decade of their marriage.
A total of 50 other men, including a nurse, soldier, journalist and prison warden, were convicted of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault after Dominique Pelicot made contact with men online inviting them to rape his then wife, who he had drugged.
Among the detailed records that Dominique Pelicot kept were pictures of his daughter, Darian, naked or semi-naked. She told the court that in two photos she was unconscious on a bed and was wearing underwear she did not recognise as her own, in a position she never slept in. She said she felt certain she had been drugged and probably abused.
Dominique Pelicot was convicted for taking indecent images of Caroline Darian that invaded her privacy, but he was not charged with drugging, raping or sexually abusing her.
At the trial he repeatedly said he had “never touched” his daughter. She told him in court: “I know you abused me. You don’t have the courage to tell me.”
Darian told Agence France-Presse: “Yes, he denied it, but he also lied several times and gave different versions of the story during the two and a half years of the investigation.”
Darian has said the initial investigation did not prioritise her case or sufficiently look into her allegations of drugging and sexual abuse. She said she was given no expert toxicological testing or gynaecological testing.
Her lawyer, Florence Rault, said this week that the allegations must now be pursued with “serious and detailed investigations”.
Beatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, told BFMTV that the complaint was “not a surprise” because Darian had made the allegations at the trial.
Zavarro said that, before last year’s trial, the state prosecutor had said there were not sufficient elements to pursue a charge against Pelicot on the allegations.
