Who is Dominique Pelicot? Twisted 'Monster of Avignon' who spent years filming drugged wife's mass rapes
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The monster husband who drugged his wife and directed dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious had a "split personality" which caused him to commit "deviant acts", his former psychiatrist said. Dominique Pelicot, the now ex-husband of 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot, was sentenced on Thursday after being found guilty of drugging her and inviting strangers to rape her. Standing to face justice alongside 50 other men, he told the court: "I am a rapist. I am guilty of what I did.".
Dr Laurent Layet, the psychiatrist who first examined Pelicot after his initial arrest, said he seemed "clean and polished". But the psychiatrist sensed a "dissonance" in Pelicot's behaviour, as if he was hiding something more serious - and told police he was worth closer inspection.
He later said that over time, Pelicot's mind became "divided", like a partitioned computer disk. "His split personality is very effective and very solid. We either have the 'normal Mr Pelicot' or the other Mr Pelicot at night, in the bedroom," he added. Asked in court to explain that "other" Pelicot, Dr Layet said there were a range of emotional and sexual abnormalities that he detected.
Dominique’s sick crimes were uncovered after he was initially arrested for taking upskirt photos in a supermarket. Gisele accompanied him to the police station, standing up for him as a thoughtful "nice guy". But it was at that police station in November 2020 that a lieutenant slid a photograph across the table and asked her: "Is this your room?" That shocking photograph was of Gisele, in her own bedroom, with a man she did not know. A second photograph was produced. The 71-year-old grandmother said: "I'm being raped. The trauma is enormous, I want to go home.".
