by The family’s “chamber of horrors”, as Caroline Darian says, was revealed, completely obliterated, on Monday 2 November 2020. It was in the middle of the Covid crisis in France, and Darian had just taken her six years. old son back to school wearing mandatory face mask. Her father, Dominique Pélicot, sent a positive message online to his grandson: “My poor boy. Be brave. You’re welcome, Dad.” But then, just a few hours later, the phone rang. It was Dharian’s mother: “Your father is going to prison”.
And just like that, Darian turned her boring but successful life – “a husband, a son, a home, a job I loved” – upside down. Her father was accused of drugging Darian’s mother and his 50-year-old wife – the woman he met when they were 18 – and inviting dozens of men to rape her over decades. the least. Suddenly, the Pélicot family was at the center of an extremely disturbing case which, now that it has come to court, is causing outrage in France – and around the world. As Darian later wrote: “You don’t know the value of boring until you’ve lost it.” Instead she was left with a “family cataclysm”.
It was the details of that 2020 phone call that changed everything, as Darian explained in her memoir, And I Stopped Calling You Daddyalmost too grim to introduce. Some names are changed in the book [Dominique becomes Louis for example] but it explains how the situation came to be, as her mother – Gisèle Pélicot in real life – called on that day in 2020 from her home in the small town of Mazan, 20 miles north-east of Avignon, in southern France, to revealed that she was. a husband, who was 67 at the time, was caught red-handed filming up the skirts of three women in a supermarket and locked up for 48 hours. Meanwhile, the police seized his phone, camcorder and computer. They found images there that allegedly showed Gisèle, who was also 67, asleep, drugged and raped. After trawling through some 20,000 digital images, police counted 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were formally identified.
“Caro, it’s true,” said Gisèle to her stunned daughter. “I had to look at some of the photos at the police station. I thought my heart would stop beating.” Until then, neither woman had the faintest idea. It turned out that Dominique was administering date-rape drugs to incapacitate his wife. And allegedly she was not the only one. Caroline broke Darian yesterday when the court heard that among the photographs of her father were pictures of his daughter as a grown woman, front and back, in her underwear, which he compared to similar images of his wife and her department it with others.
When Caroline called her two brothers, they were equally shocked. But then one remembered the last supper he had with his parents in the summer holidays of 2018. “Just a few minutes after sitting down Maman was rocking in her chair because she was drunk,” he says. “Suddenly her entire body was drained of energy, like a rag doll.”
“It happens. It’s better if I put her to sleep,” his father said at the time. But Darian says: “The cocktail of drugs, poured into her glass of rosé, was really starting to take effect.”
Immediately after receiving notice of their father’s actions four years ago, the three brothers and sisters went south to help their mother. In Avignon, they met the police team leading the investigation. The officers explained that their father did not approve, but recruited many men on web forums to rape their mother “for no financial gain”.
“The ultimate vacation,” writes Caroline. “Father, who always had money problems, never profited from Maman. He did it just for his own good.” The drugs were hidden – in the garage, in his walking shoes, in a sports sock. Did he show any remorse after confessing? “No. All your father has to do is thank me for relieving a burden,” replied the officer.
Photos showed the extent of the horror. Caroline’s father seems to have led a double life, taking Viagra, testing himself for HIV; she writes that he sometimes prevents those who were invited to rape his wife from wearing a condom. In one photo Caroline’s mother is seen naked, on her stomach, with a man behind her. “All the other photos are similar – except with different men,” she says. As Caroline and her brothers left the police station, she turned to the officer in charge. “Tell my father that I will never forgive him and that he has ruined our lives.”
But there was more to come. Shortly after she left the police station, she was called back. The police had to check two pictures with her. They were a young woman, sleeping on her left side, wearing beige knickers, in bed. “Zoomed to the bottom”. Caroline was only able to identify herself when police pointed out a birthmark. “I’m usually a light sleeper. So I was on the drug too.” It turned out that the second photo was taken in her own home. “I was his second prey.”
That night in November 2020, the three sisters had to return to their parents’ house with their mother to clean it. “It was unbearable to come back into the house, with its smell.” On her father’s desk the empty space where the confiscating computer sat was visible.
By the end of the week, her mother had gone to live with one of her brothers and Caroline, suffering a breakdown, was briefly confined to psychiatric care. According to her book, the last time her mother was raped was just two weeks before, on October 22. Back at home, knowing that the details of the case were already emerging, she had to try to explain the brutal situation to her young man. a son as best she could.
The family began to break up. As an unconscious victim, with no memory of the abuse, Caroline’s mother, the book says, found instinctive sympathy for her husband. “He’s not happy where he is, you know. He is suffering,” she told her surprised daughter. It left Caroline in despair: “Because of my father, I’m losing my mother now…”
From prison, according to Caroline, her father managed to get a letter to her mother. “I know I’m here because of what I’ve done for the love of my life, my family, my friends,” he said. Caroline describes it as a failed arch-handler. “I’m not surprised. He wants to divide us.”
As the family’s lawyer began to take evidence in the following months, alleged details emerged of how her father had boasted of the drug’s power online and how he had mastered the dosage, citing one message : “Last time I couldn’t. do a lot; this time, no problem, we can go for it.” His approach, according to his daughter, was always the same: first he would contact potential abusers on an internet chat room, then ask those chosen if they, like him, were in “rape mode” before posting pictures of his wife in a private forum called “unbeknownst to them”.
“He treated her like a low-rent prostitute,” said his horrified daughter. He didn’t have to go far to find willing participants. Most of the people who responded lived close to them. Finally, he would draw a map of how to find the house, photograph it, and send it to the people he chose, guiding them on their final approach via text message. In order not to alert the neighbors, cars had to be parked at a nearby gymnasium. Every detail has been considered. No one could wear perfume or smoke, so as not to leave any trace of their presence. Mobile phones had to be left in cars, to avoid the risk of them ringing and waking the victim. They even had to wash their hands in hot water so as not to disturb his sleeping wife with the cold fingers. After dressing in the kitchen, users were advised to keep their clothes ready in case they had to leave in a hurry. Defendants in the trial were between 21 and 68 years old at the time of the alleged rape. They include a fireman, a lorry driver, a city councillor, an IT worker in a bank, a prison guard, a nurse and a journalist.
When asked if he was sexually attracted to his daughter, he said no. “She’s not my type. She’s a lot younger than I’m used to.” He concluded: “I never touched my daughter.”
As the months passed, and the current trial approached, Caroline tried to rationalize what had happened to her family, and how each member was dealing with it. “My mother is sunny, funny and dynamic,” she notes. And strong. “Even the day she found out one of her rapists had HIV, she didn’t give up.” A subsequent HIV test was negative. In September 2022, Caroline founded a campaign group to raise awareness of drug use in rape and sexual violence. That campaign is one reason they waived anonymity at today’s trial. “There is still so much to do,” she said.
But she struggled to escape her father’s shadow. “As we get closer to the trial date, when I can sleep, I feel like I’m dreaming,” she writes. “I tried to understand the true identity of the man who raised me. My father is a criminal and I have to learn to live with this grotesque reality, accept that I am torn apart by the needs of justice, truth, and love that I once felt for him. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to hate him.”
Et j’ai cessé de t’appeler papa (And I Stopped Calling You Daddy) by Caroline Darian published in French by HarperCollins
