Pelicot Case 55th day

3.12.2024

Marion Dubreuil’s Tweets from the courthouse translated by computer software from French to English

Be aware the translations are not the best with frequently confusing pronouns

Marion Dubreuil

55th day of hearings in the so-called trial of the #viols de #Mazan (13th week) in Avignon where 51 defendants appear.
The defence's pleadings will continue before the Vaucluse departmental criminal court until 13 December inclusive
@RMCInfo

Yesterday, a first acquittal was pleaded in favor of Joseph C., 69, the only defendant tried for aggravated sexual assault

Mr. Preynet pleaded for Jean-Luc L. "14 years in prison were requested against my client, and 14 minutes is the time it took for the public prosecutor's office to request against my client. 14 years old is also the age at which my client arrived in France, forced into exile from Vietnam."

"For my client there is no salon without his knowledge, he would have been unable to understand this title. Mr. L., when he goes to coco, it's to consult images, not fanciful sexual relations. The hunter is not him but Dominique Pélicot"

"His pseudonym is Asiatic 84, without this pseudonym Mr. L. would not be here today, by which I mean that Dominique Pelicot is a collector "after his Blacks and his Arabs, he will have his Asian," continues Mr. Preynet

"In the head of Mr. L. He cannot imagine the inconceivable that a man could sedate his wife to have her raped. When he arrives at the address indicated, he is reassured to be in front of a comfortable villa, a manicured garden welcomed by a presentable man."

"Mr. L. is a smoker, he will never be instructed not to smoke. Dominique Pelicot is already in his oiled criminal process where the others are his things. As an attentive conductor, he indicates the acts to be carried out. " pleaded Mr. Preynet

"The count of the videos shows a duration of 14 minutes far from the 5 hours claimed by the investigators. As soon as he gets home, Dominique Pelicot sends him a video by email. This shipment is not innocent. He'll call it reminder videos. »

"Jean-Luc L. will watch this video, his wife will surprise him and recognize him, an argument will ensue. She threatened him to take the children and leave. Mr. L. realizes that he can lose everything, he has already switched. »

"It is said that a man whose pseudonym he only has has photos and videos of him. This 'Marc Dorian' can use these videos to broadcast them. We have a discussion with a 'mister love' from March 18, 2018 where Pelicot presents these videos. He has this fear that these media will be distributed"

The second facts of which my client is accused take place a year later: "why didn't he block him? He probably didn't know how to do it. Mr. L. knows that a "no" vote can cause a conflict situation, which he is totally fleeing. He is discreet. He prefers to kick the can down the road"

"Hoping that your interlocutor will get tired but Dominique pelicot has hooked Jean-Luc L. so he reminds him, he understood that he did not have the ability to oppose. The first prey is Gisèle Pelicot, the second is the men he brings to his home."

"Pelicot will have other projects for Mr. L. That he can come with friends, that they can perform acts on his partner together. On September 9, 2019, in an email, Dominique Pelicot encouraged him to come back by giving him an order for a sexual act with a final "ok"

"On September 15, 2020," recalls Mr. Preynet. Dominique Pelicot tried to reach Jean-Luc L. I do not believe, as he claims, that it was to warn him "because he would have behaved well". Why not break or throw away your hard drive with the videos? »

"When he calls on September 15, 2020, I wonder if he doesn't call them too, considering that they are the most vulnerable to bring them back home, he has to complete his work. He is in an omnipotence"

"When I meet Mr. L. He has an extremely poor lexical field, I, who use my language as a lawyer, realize that he has difficulty understanding me, I simplify my speech. If it is a question of judging a man, he must be judged through what he has been."

"Despite his difficulties, Jean Luc l will answer all the questions and he will have words for the victim. Mr. L. has empathy. He will have words for the victims in police custody but also in front of the psychiatrist. " recalls Mr. Preynet

"The subject can feel the suffering of others, which eliminates a perverse structure," says Preynet, who quotes the expert psychiatrist. No psychiatric dangerousness. No more criminological dangerousness. »

Jean Luc L. has been trying to make progress since his incarceration for 3 years and 8 months, he has shown the will, the need to continue this work. Is Mr. L. just a rapist? Obviously not. Those close to him describe him as a hardworking, attentive and generous man.

On the professional level, his employer is full of praise and his place is maintained. On the family level, he has 4 children, his two eldest have done well, his daughter holds a master's degree 2. His son works in the same company where he was himself employed.

The two youngest are in school, the last one requires constant care. As long as you have a Pelicot at 20, you can't have an L. at 14, no proportionality. This gap is not consistent.

"You will not give in to the will of some people to make this trial the only trial of exemplarity, you are going to condemn Mr. L., but you are not only going to judge, condemned, the rapist, but also the man he is, he has been and will be tomorrow"

"No, Mr. G. is not Mr. Pélicot, nor his disciple, my client did not have his wife raped by other men like you, without you he would not be here today," adds Mr. Bres for Cédric G.

"Mr. G. has been able to invest himself in his professional life, a music lover and a great loner. But the personality investigator will find in him a deep malaise. »

Me Bres discredits the depositions of Cédric G.'s 3 ex-girlfriends. She says of her client that he has a "frank" relationship with the truth, he will talk about sexuality as an outlet. It is based on the low dangerousness assessed by the expert psychiatrist
My sketch ✍️🎨

"Cédric G. admits the facts. We judge an accused in relation to his thinking, to the journey", the first time that a defence lawyer has asked the court not to judge an accused according to his personality but on the facts and his introspection

Bres recalls that Cédric G., who is bisexual, was looking for a relationship with a man on a coconut, "he will never exchange on the show without his knowledge", she adds, in any case, he admits the facts. "He will stay less than 30 minutes at the Pelicots' house and will never go there again"

"On the spot, he will not have an erection and will not experience any sexual pleasure," continues Bres. This can be explained by the fact that Cedric G. was in a scenario that was not his fantasy. Besides, Dominique Pelicot will be angry that Cedric G. can't do it."

Mr. Bres quotes his client: "It's something that I wanted to bury, totally forgotten. Even if he admits the facts of the case, he did not immediately have this awareness of the commission of a rape. It is only once he is arrested that he will be able to express himself."

Cédric G. will also admit to the possession of child pornography images even before his equipment is used, before his supplementary indictment, says Bres.

"The fantasy does not imply the act," says Cédric G.'s lawyer. He will never file a request for release, he has had a frank position that is too frank with regard to the facts, which has led to disagreements. »

"16 years requested against Cédric G is only 4 years less than for Dominique Pelicot, it is sometimes more than for some defendants who went to the Pelicots' house several times without acknowledging the facts"

"Should we remember this trial as a trial that instrumentalized justice? No," pleaded Mr. Bres, who asked for a proportionate, acceptable sentence

Hearing suspended until 2 p.m. for the pleadings of Guillaume de Palma for two defendants Nizar H. And Patrice L.

My sketch of the pleadings of Mr. Bres and Mr. Preynet ✍️

Before starting his pleadings, Guillaume de Palma announces that he will plead a general statement without starting his pleadings for the benefit of his 6 clients: "I am here for them" begins Mr. de Palma
@RMCInfo

@RMCInfo "Those who don't count, don't count anymore, those who are laughed at, those whose word is never listened to, whose family name becomes a disgrace, those who hide, those who are despised. One would almost doubt that they have a little humanity left."

@RMCInfo "I am pleading before OUR departmental court of Vaucluse. Misfortune is king there."

@RMCInfo "I defend simple men, or rather simple men. He lists the ages of his clients, the ages at which they met Dominique Pelicot, nothing in their lives could make him one day in their lives in contact with this man. Fate is often unfair"

@RMCInfo "This fatality has a name, Dominique Pelicot, the Pelicot case rather than that of the Mazan rapes," pleaded Mr. de Palma. Dominique Pelicot's work, already inscribed in the pantheon of the mâl, will perhaps be the source of good. With a reworked representation of rape. »

@RMCInfo "With a collective awareness, future generations will have to finally take up the issue of sexual violence. I don't believe that the verdict of the departmental court of Vaucluse will make our children better educated, that's not its function."

@RMCInfo "Criminal justice applies criminal law, it is not your job to judge crime in sociology. In sociology, Durkheim described it as something that shocks the common conscience," pleaded Mr. de Palma, "let's not judge it as if the intentional element were indifferent."

@RMCInfo "I am not pleading before an assize court, I will not give you the audacity to remind you of the obvious, you are independent and neutral and free and basically in this case it is indeed a question of freedom"

@RMCInfo "Freedom for Mrs. Pelicot to have a public hearing. Freedom to see everything, even the most abject videos, freedom for you, Mr. Pelicot, to lie. »

@RMCInfo "Freedom also to defend oneself as one sees fit and its corollary freedom to defend as one sees fit. We don't need advice. Freedom when it is still a question of being deprived of it for 12, 13 and 14 years. »

@RMCInfo "Your premise is that Dominique Pelicot always tells the truth. How many of them do you have to tell you, 6, 35, 50 maybe? You hit and continue to hit, such judicial blindness can only distort your requisitions, it is the land of evil that you are borrowing."

@RMCInfo "This case is first and foremost one of mental manipulation. When I hear that this verdict must change society, two things come to mind: firstly, the statistics, the frightening % of complaints closed without follow-up, and secondly, the fate of some is not that of others."

@RMCInfo "I was surprised that Mr. Pelicot never gets up, chooses his interlocutors, distributes good and bad points as if from the top of his seat he had any power, not over you but ours"

@RMCInfo "An attitude of a maestro, of a chef, of a godfather," pleaded Mr. de Palma. Already in confrontation, he had a place of choice. For Dr. Layet, we are at the pinnacle of the mechanism of control, the woman reduced to the state of an object."

@RMCInfo "Dr. Bensussan reports a manipulator using his wife as bait. He needs to have full power over the object, the defendants were used and entered into Mr. Pelicot's fantasy according to the expert psychologist."

@RMCInfo "These men are placed here and there, used as objects like Gisèle Pelicot. We must also listen to what Joel Pelicot says, he has come to invalidate the sexual assaults of which Dominique Pelicot would have been a victim. His children, his son, calls him the devil"

@RMCInfo "You have the attorney general, reported a disturbing communion as if there were a VIP area and the others as if what was exasperating on one side would not be so on the other. As if these men were not allowed to smile and drink coffee. »

@RMCInfo "As if they should have the head of the job, they don't have the head of the job, they come with their culture, their education, their simplicity, behave as they are. This pejorative image of relaxation, I want to see in it their confidence in justice."

@RMCInfo "They are from the house, they could be my brothers, my friends, my children. They come to this bar with their stupidity and their naivety, they come as simple men. The explanations they give, we would like them to be intellectualized, to have hindsight."

@RMCInfo Guillaume de Palma cites a personality trait of each of his 6 clients. "you take a little Boris M., you add a lot of Pelicot and you will see what happens, and you reproach these men for not having understood in a few minutes"

@RMCInfo No, they didn't go there with full knowledge of the facts," says de Palma, who comes back to the contact, "it's first and foremost a matter of the color of rosé because my clients are looking for a sexual relationship with a woman."

"No Skype discussions with my clients, none of my clients assures me de Palma. The show, unbeknownst to him, became the be-all and end-all of this file since they had gone to this show, they knew. »

@RMCInfo "Mr. Pelicot says anything and we always continue to serve the same thing about it, they knew, they knew about it," continues Mr. de Palma

@RMCInfo "This case is about our customers having invented this libertine game. It's funny because it was Dominique Pelicot who invented it," continues de Palma. In front of Dr. Layet he talks about a game with his wife to take pictures under women's skirts"

"The prosecution's thesis at the beginning was a network. If we know each other today, it's because we met in prison," says de Palma. We have not developed a common scenario, a common defence strategy"

"Today you contest it's more than 2 - editor's note, plus 2 years in prison required - me de Palma to a word for his client Cyril B. who said he "stood firm" "for the arrival on the scene we heard that everyone parked in the same place, arrived at the same time of the night"

"This is false. But everything is done to reassure them. If they did not move knowingly, the sentence is not the same, it has nothing to do with it, pleaded Mr. de Palma, it would mean that in reality they were deceived, fooled, decoyed. »

"If there is rape, it is committed at the beginning of the sexual relationship until the end of the sexual relationship. Otherwise, who can say at what point they are aware of the fact that they are committing rape: at the beginning, in the middle, at the end? It's complicated"

"You have someone who combines the functions of screenwriter, actor, editor, director, probably also in charge of the lighting and sound engineer," pleaded the de Palma, who means that the videos were edited by Dominique Pelicot

"It's not because you're not intellectually deficient or schizophrenic that you understand everything," pleaded de Palma

@RMCInfo "Boris M. never saw this situation so they should have behaved differently but their behavior after the fact does not sign any guilt, we continue as we are, we are not trying to leave or change cars," continues de Palma

"Caroline Darian says that this is the issue of chemical submission, it is also ours. We have to ask the question. Mr. Pelicot probably drugged his daughter, he admits to having used ether in the Nanterre case, admits to having raped Jean-Pierre M.'s wife."

"He offered to drug other companions of the accused, he raped his wife for 10 years and we come to explain to you that in this case there is no question of it - editor's note: that he could have drugged the accused - there are also products that disinhibit"

"The question arises should have been asked, I lower my coulpe, assures me de Palma. I base myself on the video of Nizar H. where we see the color of my client's tongue blue. On his way back from Mazan he had an accident. »

"It also exists in Boris M.'s statements, but at the time I was not their lawyer."

"It's not a question of necessarily saying they were drugged. But when Dominique Pelicot was asked whether he had been able to offer coffee, pastis, a glass of water to the accused, the answer was no. Regardless of chemical submission, many say they were offered a drink."

"Why it was not possible to take Nizar H.'s hair? My clients did not go to the Pelicots' home to rape Gisèle Pelicot. No composite portrait of the rapist. recalls Mr. de Palma

"We are told that all men are capable of raping. May be. But perhaps they also did not commit the acts knowingly. " assures Me de Palma

"This intentional element that we would like to remove from the debates may be that we will throw it into oblivion in favor of a presumption of consent for a contractualization of the reports. Whether I agree or not, who cares. »

"We don't think in terms of perspectives. I remain convinced that my clients did not know. Entangled as they were in Dominique Pelicot's skein of lies. Their fault? Trust, give credit, do not imagine the unimaginable. " continues Mr. de Palma

"You're going to have to figure out why they couldn't understand. We try to develop a reflection that they did not have during the act, action has taken over reflection," continues de Palma

"What did they know? What did they have in mind? To see things well, we can't place ourselves on the side of the eyelet of morality, of what will be said about it. You will have to judge at the level of men. By concluding that they did not all know how to act in full knowledge of the facts"

Suspension of the hearing me de Palma will plead on December 12 and 13 for his 6 clients in detail in particular their personality
@RMCInfo

@RMCInfo For my part, I will not return to the court of Avignon until next Thursday for the final stretch of the pleadings of the defense, I will read my colleagues to follow them at a distance until then
✍️🎨 from Dominique Pélicot, during the pleadings of Guillaume de Palma

https://theconversation.com/rape-survivors-like-gisele-pelicot-are-choosing-to-speak-out-refuting-the-idea-that-they-should-feel-shame-243659

“Using their voices

Courts around the world, including in France, provide special measures to shield the identity and testimony of rape survivors, including the use of protective screens in the courtroom or prerecorded testimony.

Vulnerable witnesses in France and elsewhere also have the right to testify in closed proceedings, and news organizations generally do not name and identify victims when they report about rape. These measures aim to protect survivors from face-to-face confrontations with perpetrators, as well as from victim blaming and shaming.

But the Pelicot case and others show how some sexual assault survivors across the globe are rejecting these legal protections and are choosing to reveal their names, faces and voices. Their decisions don’t just challenge perpetrators – they challenge the courts, rape culture and the way people often understand shame.

As a former lawyer and a researcher on sound and voice, I study how rape survivors and their allies speak out about sexual violence, in and out of court. Filmmaker Bremen Donovan and I are working on a documentary film, “Big Mouth,” about women’s testimony against sexual violence in the West African country of Guinea.”

---

Mary Daly short film to access on YouTube

MARY DALY ON RAPISM

MARY DALY ON RAPISM