This video presents a harrowing and in-depth interview with the legal counsel involved in the landmark case of Giselle Pellico, a French woman subjected to nearly a decade of marital sexual abuse and rape, orchestrated by her husband and involving at least 50 men. The narrative follows the attorney's perspective from initial disbelief and the painstaking investigation into how such prolonged, coordinated abuse could occur undetected, touching on the victim's gradual journey to awareness, the immense challenges in facing such trauma, and the legal complexities of the case.

The interview delves into the broader implications of the case, focusing on why Madame Pellico courageously chose to waive her anonymity. By making the trial public, she aimed to shed light on systemic failings, challenge rape culture, and inspire support and advocacy for all survivors. The discourse highlights the ordinariness of the accused perpetrators, questions societal perceptions about who is capable of such crimes, and draws attention to the collective responsibility to confront and prevent sexual violence.

Main takeaways from the video:

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The case demonstrates the extreme lengths abusers can go to and the complex psychological, physical, and legal ramifications for victims.
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By making her story public, Giselle Pellico underscores the importance of survivors having evidence and community support, as well as the critical need for societal self-examination regarding misogyny and rape culture.
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The trial has ignited national and international conversations about justice, victim advocacy, and the continued necessity for vigilance and activism against sexual violence.
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Survivors may appear strong outwardly but continue to endure profound internal trauma.
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Even those considered “ordinary” can perpetrate grave acts, debunking stereotypes about sexual offenders.
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Institutional and societal barriers often require victims to fight for even basic recognition and justice.
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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. accrued [əˈkruːd] - adjective / verb (past participle) - Accumulated or increased over time, often referring to something negative such as risk or debt. - Synonyms: (accumulated, accumulated, amassed, gathered)

...an accrued risk of cancer.

2. humiliated [hjuːˈmɪlieɪtɪd] - adjective / verb (past participle) - Made to feel extremely ashamed or foolish, especially publicly. - Synonyms: (ashamed, embarrassed, mortified, abased)

She felt extremely humiliated by what she was seeing.

3. anonymity [ˌænəˈnɪməti] - (noun) - The condition of being anonymous; lacking personal identification or distinctive character. - Synonyms: (namelessness, facelessness, obscurity, invisibility)

...she didn't want to be anonymous, that she wanted to waive her right to anonymity and open up the case...

4. degradation [ˌdɛɡrəˈdeɪʃən] - (noun) - The condition or process of being degraded or reduced in quality, dignity, or character. - Synonyms: (humiliation, debasement, abasement, decline)

...that they were the representation of extreme acts of human degradation, and that they could not be shown...

5. resonated [ˈrɛzəˌneɪtəd] - verb (past tense) - To evoke a feeling of shared emotion or belief; to have particular meaning or importance for someone. - Synonyms: (echoed, reverberated, struck a chord, connected)

...this is something that resonated very strongly everywhere.

6. disrupt [dɪsˈrʌpt] - (verb) - To interrupt or drastically alter the normal course of something. - Synonyms: (interrupt, disturb, unsettle, derail)

So it would disrupt proceedings

7. selfless [ˈsɛlflɪs] - (adjective) - Concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one's own; unselfish. - Synonyms: (altruistic, unselfish, charitable, magnanimous)

I would describe Giselle Pellicaut as extraordinary, as courageous, selfless and humble.

8. facade [fəˈsɑːd] - (noun) - A deceptive outward appearance; a front that is put up to hide a less pleasant reality. - Synonyms: (front, veneer, mask, pretense)

The facade may be solid, but behind it lies a field of ruins.

9. presiding [prɪˈzaɪdɪŋ] - adjective / verb (present participle) - Acting as the one in charge of a meeting, trial, or organization. - Synonyms: (officiating, chairing, superintending, overseeing)

...the initial decision of the presiding judge who ruled that journalists and members of the public wouldn't be allowed to see the videos...

10. courtroom [ˈkɔːrt.ruːm] - (noun) - A room where legal cases are heard and decided by a judge and often a jury. - Synonyms: (tribunal, justice hall, legal chamber, law court)

...she was already thinking to allow the public into the courtroom.

11. ordinary [ˈɔːrdəˌnɛri] - (adjective) - With no special or distinctive features; normal. - Synonyms: (normal, usual, regular, typical)

They're ordinary men because they are well integrated men.

Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer speaks to Victoria Derbyshire

You, when you first took over the case and you were looking at the evidence and absorbing what it involved, a husband filming his wife who'd been drugged into unconsciousness by him before allowing at least 50 men, strangers, recruited online over almost a decade, into the marital home to rape his wife, what did you think? Well, I think that there is a moment of disbelief for everyone who heard about this story the first time. How is this even possible, that first someone would want to do that to his wife? And how is it possible for the victim not to know what is happening to her? And the only way to answer this question is really by looking at the case, of course, but by listening to the victim herself, we were immediately convinced that this woman was telling the truth, that she was genuinely unaware of what was happening to her. And she explained to us how for 10 years she's been trying to understand what was happening to her by consulting with doctors, by talking with her family, with her environment, and no one was able to find any explanation.

What were your fears, your concerns, before telling Gisele Pellico exactly who this involved, what it involved, and the scale of it over almost a decade? Well, that she could have a nervous breakdown, of course, because we were all very worried that a human being who has been exposed to hundreds of extreme sexual abuse without knowing that after being told what had happened to her, she couldn't accept to watch the videos or even to continue the discussion about the extent of the rapes, how many, how long, how who. She wasn't ready for that. It took her almost three years to be able to accept to have this very straightforward conversation about what was in the case. And she accepted that because at that time, she was already thinking to allow the public into the courtroom. So she felt that she needed to be fully aware and fully informed of the case, even if, as many others, she would have preferred to leave without knowing if it was possible. But it wasn't.

And she, as you say, it took her four years to watch the footage, the videos that her husband had filmed. How did she respond? How did she deal with what she was viewing? She felt extremely humiliated by what she was seeing. Extremely humiliated. She felt ashamed to. Ashamed to listen to her snoring on the videos, ashamed of see herself in positions that were completely the opposite of who she was. And she was extremely shocked of seeing herself becoming an object. She used very strong words. They using me as a trash bag, they using me as an object, they using me not as a human being. And I think that this achieved to help her deciding that she Wanted an open trial, public trial, because she felt that it was important that people understood what happened to her.

Let's talk about Madame Pellico's decision, that she didn't want to be anonymous, that she wanted to waive her right to anonymity and open up the case to journalists and to members of the public. Why was that important to her? She realized that it wouldn't be possible to understand the extent of what happened and that this story could be useful to others, and that in order to ensure that this would not happen again to anyone, it was important for the public to know how this could happen.

What kind of men are on trial here? We heard many times that they are ordinary men. They're ordinary men because they are well integrated men. For most of them, they have jobs, families, friends. But they're not ordinary in the choices they made because they made some very particular choices that not all men would have done. And they have personal responsibility over these choices. So what this trial is trying to achieve is to understand how ordinary men could find themselves in this position.

What has led to this horrendous story, as you say, the accused are husbands, brothers, fathers. They include a firefighter, an electrician, a baker, a nurse, a construction worker, a journalist. They're aged between 22 and the oldest, in his late 60s. What does it say about the sorts of men that are capable of committing such acts? I think that there is something that all of them have in common is a quite devalued image of women. And all of them, I think, have this fantasy of male dominance over women. And this is something that they all have in common. And it's something that. It's interesting because it leads us to the debate over what is the rape culture and how such different men at some point find themselves in the same situation in. In this room, raping an elder woman.

It did emerge in court that one of the accused is HIV positive. Yes. The fact is that the rapes were committed without protection, almost all of them. So it means at least 50 men. But it's very likely that they may have been more because according to some sources, it may be up to 70 or. Or 80. And for all of them, Dominique Pelicauld was asking them not to wear any protection. So after the case was revealed, she was diagnosed with four STDs, HIV not included. So luckily.

So she was diagnosed with four sexually transmitted diseases. Yes. And it was discovered that one of the alleged rapists was HIV positive and obviously was not using a condom. No. But he was receiving treatment, which medically really decreased a lot the risk of transmitting the virus. But now she has to live with the consequences of these STDs, and which means a permanent monitoring of her health because of an accrued risk of cancer. So, yes, she really endured some physical consequences added to the psychological consequences of the rapes. And this is something that Mrs. Pelicaut is not ashamed to mention and to reveal, because she believes that this can be useful to others.

Would you say that France and French society has much to learn through this case? Absolutely. I mean, I think that all societies have something to learn about this case. And this is why we were very surprised to see so many international attention about the case, which is something that was absolutely not expected. So it says something about the fact that there is something shared among women all over the world, which is that they are exposed to this kind of specific risks everywhere. I mean, being a woman, sadly and unfortunately nowadays, means almost everywhere in the world being exposed to the risk of being sexually abused at some point in her life. And this is something that resonated very strongly everywhere.

I want to ask you about the initial decision of the presiding judge who ruled that journalists and members of the public wouldn't be allowed to see the videos that Dominique Pellico had filmed of his wife being raped for reasons of decency. And you had to fight for these videos to be shown in open court. What do you think of the fact that you had to fight that? Well, I think that it shows that women must fight all the time, even as being victims of rape, they have to fight for their rights. And this is one of the reasons why Mrs. Pellicot wanted to fight back, to push back this decision. But the court, which didn't have bad intention, they were very worried that these videos could create some kind of troubles, that they could lead to protests and in the courtroom, in the courthouse, or even outside.

So it would disrupt proceedings. Exactly that. This would create some troubles. But there was also the idea that these videos were against the very basic decency, that they were offensive and that they were the representation of extreme acts of human degradation, and that they could not be shown and treated as any other evidence. And Mrs. Petticoat could not accept the idea that a rape, the video of a rape is such offensive that it cannot be shown to the public, because she really believed that what's offensive, what's against public decency, is the rape itself, not the representation of the rape.

Most evenings after the trial, women line up to applaud Madame Pellico out of court. And you have told Me. Madame Pellico has received hundreds and hundreds of letters. You've got just a small batch today which have arrived at your offices here in Paris. What effect is that having on her? She has mixed feelings about that. The first feeling is an immense sense of gratitude for these women because she never asked for it. She didn't expect for it to happen. She believed, truly, because this is what we told her, that she would be by herself, with, of course, the support of her legal team and her family members. But that would be all for the four months. And no one ever expected that she would receive some power, public support, this level of public attention. And then came another feeling, which is a feeling of responsibility. So she feels a lot of gratitude because it helps her a lot, a lot to feel, because it's very complicated for her to. Well, to put herself in this situation every day of the week for months, having to endure the videos, having to endure the questions, having to endure the explanations of the accused. She feels that somehow she's representing these people now and she didn't choose for that, but it happened and she accepted it.

You told me, actually, that in response to some of the letters she's getting from women around the world, she used the word lucky about her own case because there is evidence, and so often in rape cases, it's one person's word against another. Yes. How odd is that, to feel that one may be lucky in her situation? She feels lucky because, as she told many times, she has evidence of what happened to her, which is very rarely the case in many courts all over the world, in France, in UK probably, there are victims facing that by themselves, with no one clapping for them at the exit of the court and having to go back to their homes every day preparing for the next day of trial. And Mrs. Petico is all the time thinking to this woman, what words would you use to describe Giselle Pelicauld?

I would describe Giselle Pellicaut as extraordinary, as courageous, selfless and humble. If you ask the same question to Giselle Pellicot herself, she would tell you that she's perfectly normal and that she's ordinary, because this is how she feels. She feels that she's an ordinary person who is facing extraordinary things. Giselle Pellico has said herself, and I'm quoting her exact words, people may see me and think, that woman is strong. The facade may be solid, but behind it lies a field of ruins. I was in the court when she said those words. What she meant was that one from the outside could have the feeling that she's doing okay because, well, she's standing. She can express herself clearly. But she wouldn't want for anyone to believe that she's not traumatized for what happened. And she wouldn't want anyone to believe that because a victim of sexual abuse or rape is capable of smiling, laughing, living a normal life, it doesn't mean that she's living an internal fight every day. And it's precisely what's happening to her. A victim of sexual abuse can, it's true, appear as a mess or appear as a perfectly normal person and the same apply for an aggressor.

Stephane Babineau, thank you very much for talking to Newsnight. Thank you. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you.

INSPIRATION, LEADERSHIP, GLOBAL, SURVIVOR ADVOCACY, RAPE CULTURE, JUSTICE, BBC NEWSNIGHT