Each day, scores of women queued outside Avignon’s Palais de Justice to applaud Ms Pelicot as she entered, while she has been flooded with messages of support from every corner of the globe, with Mr Babonneau describing her overwhelming gratitude for the women who lifted her up as being the predominant feeling she has been left with in the wake of the trial.
More than four years later, Ms Pelicot is still fighting, but Mr Babonneau said she told him it could never be worse then that day.
The grandmother was the epitome of dignity, courage and strength as she sat across from her ex Dominique Pelicot in the courtroom in Avignon, France, every day of the gruelling three-month trial, after he had drugged her and invited other men to join him in unfathomable sexual abuse over the course of a decade.
Her lawyer said she would tell him: “I want future victims to think, ‘If Mrs Pelicot can do it, I could do it.’”.
Mr Babonneau recalled the “symbolic” moment when a “glowing” and “respected” Ms Pelicot arrived at the courtroom, while the men who had sexually abused her cowered behind masks and hoods as they hurriedly shuffled in.
