Monster of Avingon’s victim Gisele Pelicot is awarded France’s Legion of Honour for bravery in speaking out after enduring horrific sexual abuse at the hands of her ex-husband

Gisèle Pelicot has been awarded with a French Legion of Honour for her bravery in speaking out about the horrific sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her ex-husband.

Dubbed the Monster of Avingon, Dominique Delicot, 72, subjected his then-wife to years of abuse by secretly drugging her, raping her and hiring other men to do the same to her.

Over years he filmed the horrific acts and referred to Gisèleas his ‘work’.

Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison for raping and organising the mass rape of his wife – with all of his 50 co-defendants also receiving guilty verdicts for their part in France’s most notorious sex crimes trial.

Madame Pelicot emerged from the courtroom after the trial to the waiting cameras of the world’s media, telling them she was ’emotional’ as she issued a statement after what she said had been ‘a very difficult test for me.’

The 72-year-old demanded a public trial ‘so that shame would change sides’ and stoically attended the trial for three months, watching each of the defendants as they were convicted of her rape and other heinous crimes at the court in Avignon.  

Gisèle Pelicot is among the 589 honorees who will be inducted into the Legion of Honour on the occasion of the national holiday, Bild reported.

The list also includes US musician Pharrell Williams, 52, and Auschwitz survivor Yvette Lévy, 99.

Gisèle Pelicot has been awarded with a French Legion of Honour

Gisele Pelicot, speaking at her home in the southern French town of Mazan

The 72-year-old demanded a public trial ‘so that shame would change sides’

Police found some 20,000 lurid images and videos of Madame Pelicot being abused in files on Dominique’s computer, as well as pictures of his daughter and his two daughters-in-law naked.

As his sentence was delivered his daughter Caroline Darian yelled at him: ‘You will die alone like a dog in jail!’ 

She directed the phrase at her cowering father, who the family has condemned, throughout the trial.

Among some of men who were found guilty, 63-year-old Romain Vandevelde was knowingly HIV-positive yet raped Mme Pelicot on six separate occasions without wearing protection.

Having waived her legal right to anonymity in order to ensure the case received the maximum amount of publicity, the grandmother refused to be shamed – but instead repeatedly directed any shame at her abusers.

As interest in the case grew, she was clapped and cheered as she arrived at court and left at the end of the day. 

Graffiti honouring her bravery was daubed on Avignon’s medieval stone walls and protests in support of her erupted all over France.  

Her abusers, most from within a 50-mile radius of the Pelicots’ home, were seemingly ordinary men from all walks of life.

Mme Pelicot looked at each of the defendants as their verdicts were read out. This court sketch depicts her looking at her husband

French Holocaust survivor Yvette Levy has also been awarded the Legion of Honour

US musician and fashion designer Pharrell Williams will also be recognised

The fact that broadly represented a cross section of French society saw them collectively described as Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde – or Mr Everyman.

There was veteran chief fireman Christian Lescole, 57, who protested in court at being locked up after spending ‘a lifetime saving people’. Police also found naked pictures of children on his computer following his arrest. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Moroccan-born hospital nurse Redouane El Farihi screamed his innocence before a video of him assaulting Madame Pelicot while she lay motionless was played in court. He was sentenced to eight years in prison

There was ‘sexual predator’ Jerome Vilela, a supermarket worker, who was described by his ex-partner as a ‘sex-addict’ and told a prison psychologist he saw sex as a ‘conjugal right’. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Successful builder Thierry Parisis told the court he had fallen into a spiral of depression and alcoholism following the death of his son in a car crash. He added he remembered very little about his encounter with Madame Pelicot. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Retired marine fire-fighter Jacques Cubeau said he was lonely, we was sentenced to five years in prison.

There was IT worker Lionel Rodriguez, 44; painter and decorator Husamettin Dogan, 43; odd-job man Mathieu Dartus, 53; motorcycle mechanic and racer Hugues Malago, 39. They were sentenced to eight years, seven years and six years respectively.

Retired electrician Dominique Pelicot met each of his accomplices on an internet site for voyeurs called ‘a son insu’ which translates as ‘without her knowledge’.

Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse after hearing the verdict of the court that sentenced her ex-husband to the maximum term of 20 years jail

Dominque Pelicot (pictured) drugged his ex wife Gisele and inviting dozens of men to rape her while he watched and filmed them over a decade long period of hell

Over almost ten years he invited strangers – up to three times a week – to come to the couple’s retirement chalet to rape his wife, which he had rendered unconscious by putting powerful sedatives in her dinner and glass of rose wine.

To ensure they weren’t seen, Pelicot told the would-be rapists to park well away from the house, avoid wearing after-shave or smelling of cigarette smoke, and ensure they left nothing behind in the bedroom.

He directed the multiple rapes of his sleeping wife with such attention to detail that a lawyer described him in court as a ‘perverted Steven Spielberg’.

The potentially fatal doses of sedatives forced upon Madame Pelicot had a devastating effect on her health. She lost weight, her hair fell out and she suffered lengthy blackouts. Her doctor feared she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She also became infected with four sexually transmitted disease. She had no idea how.

The abuse only stopped when Pelicot was arrested in October 2020 for taking pictures of women’s underwear on his phone at his local supermarket – a form of voyeurism known as ‘upskirting’.

A search by gendarmes of his home discovered some 20,000 lurid images and images of his wife being violated in the marital bed on computer files and mobile phones.

The following month, while returning home from Paris where she had been looking after her grandchildren, detectives asked Madame Pelicot to come to the police station.

At first, she did not recognise the woman lying on the bed unconscious being abused in the photograph that the policeman showed her. Then she saw it was her and she had been used by her husband of 50 years in the depraved sex scenes he filmed.

Gisele Pelicot, 72, held her head high as she heard and watched films taken by her husband of 50 years in which she was abused some 200 times by strangers he had invited into their home

A courtroom sketch shows presiding judge Roger Arata (Top L), public prosecutor Jean-Francois Mayet and defendant Dominique Pelicot in front of many of his co-defendants

‘That day will be seared in my memory for ever,’ Madame Pelicot told the court.

‘It was a scene of barbarism. I was in a state of shock.

‘I remember asking for a glass of water, then a psychologist came into the room, they said my husband had been detained – and everything just collapsed for me.

‘We were 50 years together, with three children and seven grandchildren, and our friends said we were the ideal couple. I just couldn’t take it in.’

Returning alone to the house where she had been so cruelly betrayed, she called her grown-up children – David, Caroline and Florian – to tell them their father was a monster.

Three days later she arrived in Paris with just two suitcases and her dog, never to return to Mazan.