Florian Plag from Bretten, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
An elderly French man, Dominique P., is facing trial in the southern city of Avignon on charges of orchestrating the r@pe of his unconscious wife over a ten-year period.
The 71-year-old former employee of France’s power utility, EDF, allegedly scouted online to find men to sleep with his drugged wife.
He is being tried alongside fifty other men, accused of participating in the r@pes of the woman, who was so heavily sedated that she was unaware of the abuse.
The trial commenced on Monday and is expected to be an incredibly painful ordeal for the victim, now in her 70s. She elected to remain unnamed.
Antoine Camus, one of her lawyers said she had no recollection of the abuses, which spanned 10 years and was only discovered in 2020.
The victim is opting for an open trial so she can face her attackers in open court. She had lived with the man for over 50 years and never discovered his dark side.
The investigation into Dominique P. began in September 2020 when he was caught secretly filming under the skirts of women at a shopping centre. Police found thousands of pictures and videos on his computer, showing his wife unconscious and in vulnerable positions. These images documented 92 instances of r@pe by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.
The abuses reportedly began in 2011 when the couple lived near Paris and continued after they moved to Mazan, a village near Avignon. Dominique P. admitted to drugging his wife with powerful tranquillizers, including Temesta, to facilitate the r@pes. He gave strict instructions to the men to ensure they did not wake his wife, including prohibiting strong odours and requiring them to undress in another room.
The accused rapists, aged between 21 and 68, include individuals from various walks of life, such as a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, and a journalist.
While some claim they were merely participating in what they believed to be consensual fantasy play, Dominique P. insisted that they all knew his wife was drugged and unaware of what was happening.
The trial, which is set to continue until December, will seek to determine the extent of the participants’ knowledge and understanding of the situation. Dominique P., who has also been charged with a 1991 r@pe and murder and a 1999 attempted r@pe, is described by psychiatric evaluations as a manipulative patriarch with a perverse personality who used his wife as “bait.”
