The daughter of a French woman who was allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted repeatedly by her husband and dozens of other men revealed her own fear of victimhood on Friday.
Caroline Darian, 45, testified in an Avignon court against her father, Dominique Pélicot, 71, saying she believes she was also drugged and potentially raped like her mother, Gisèle.
Among the thousands of photos and videos that police say Pélicot kept of his wife being abused, the officers also discovered two photos of an unidentified unconscious woman. “I realized right away I was drugged in that photo,” Darian told the court.
According to her testimony, the images featuring Darian were captioned “the slut’s daughter.” She described the crude remark as “beyond its inaudible vulgarity,” and said “the caption makes me want to vomit.”
Although prosecutors have not charged Pélicot with drugging or sexually assaulting his daughter, Darian says she suspects she too was raped, an accusation her father has denied. Pélicot, however, stands accused of invading Darian and her two step-sisters’ privacy for “taking, recording or transmitting” a sexual image of her without their consent.
“How does a person like me heal, hope to have a normal woman’s life, a normal sex life?” Darian asked the court. “How does one rebuild oneself from the ashes knowing their father is undoubtedly the worst sexual predator of the last 20 years?”
Darian’s mother, who took the stand on Thursday, waived her rights to anonymity, opting to have the trial involving some 51 men open to the public.
“I speak for all women who are drugged and don’t know about it, I do it on behalf of all women who will perhaps never know,” Gisèle said. “So that no more women have to suffer.”
Pélicot faces 50 years in prison if he is found convicted on rape charges.
