‘By your verdict, you will signify that ordinary rape does not exist’

A new page was turned in the Pelicot rape trial on Wednesday, November 27, with the end of three days of the prosecutions’ closing arguments against the 51 defendants, one of whom is still at large. Taking the floor one last time, the lead prosecutor, Laure Chabaud, attempted to “look to the future.” Calling on the defendants to stop hiding behind their “magic formula” – “I recognize the facts, not the intention” – she expressed the wish for a “real awareness” of what they are accused of and of “the notion of consent.”

“Some have started to make progress. For others, we’re still a long way off,” Chabaud observed. Addressing the five judges of the Vaucluse criminal court, she added: “By your verdict, you will signify that ordinary rape does not exist. That there is no such thing as accidental or involuntary rape. That there is no such thing as an inevitability for women to suffer and no such thing as an inevitability for men to act. And you will guide us in the education of our sons. It is through education that change will come.”

What can be learned from the necessarily laborious exercise carried out by the two prosecutors? On one side of the spectrum, there’s Dominique Pelicot, the only one for whom the maximum sentence – 20 years – has been requested. To symbolically distinguish “the cornerstone of this case,” the “XXL pervert” described by psychiatrists, himself the author of around 100 rapes on his wife, from the other defendants, the longest sentence requested after his was 18 years. With the exception of the sole defendant prosecuted for the offense of sexual assault, for whom four years’ imprisonment was requested, no sentence of less than 10 years was sought.

10 minutes for each one

The message to the court, and beyond it to the broader public, is clear: It sets a sort of minimum sentence for all the others, tried for attempted rape or gang rape. Prosecutors Jean-François Mayet and Laure Chabaud divided up the 49 remaining defendants within a deliberately reduced time frame of eight years. The further the arguments progressed, the more this constraint came up against its limits. Forty-nine defendants, aged from 27 (Joan K.) to 74 (Jean-Marc L.), means 49 individuals, 49 life stories.

On average, the two prosecutors devoted 10 minutes to each of them. Ten minutes, in which they had to fit in a reminder of the accused’s position on the facts of the case (whether or not he recognized them), his first statements in police custody, a fairly detailed evocation of the video images concerning him, the repetition of one or two sentences uttered at the hearing, a summary of the psychological and psychiatric experts, and another of his criminal record, before concluding with a sentence request.

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