Justa heads up, we'll be discussing sexual abuse and distressing themes on the podcast today. The episode might not be for everyone, so if you're not filling up to it, feel free to skip and come back again tomorrow. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the sixteenth of September. I'm Emma, I'm Chloe. A court case out of France has captured the attention of the world these
last couple of weeks. It's an incredibly disturbing story about a seventy one year old woman, her ex husband, and fifty other men. For the next three months, Gaselle Pelico will sit in a courtroom in Avignon, France, as those fifty one men, all but one who are strangers to her, face rape charges for alleged crimes against her that she has no memory of.
You've probably seen the headlines, but there's a lot that's come out about this case, and there's a lot to come, so we want to help you understand the context this story today in the Deep Dive. But first, m what's making headlines.
Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore has secured her sixth term in office after New South Wales held its local council elections over the weekend. Moore first assumed the role of Lord Mayor for the City of Sydney in two thousand and four. She said she was really delighted about the outcome of the election and that it was quote a pretty tough campaign and some awful things were said, but I'm so encouraged and happy about the city community endorsing me.
A report into the robojet scheme has found twelve current and former public servants and former agency heads breached their code of conduct on ninety seven occasions. Robodet was a government debt collection system used from twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen. An illegal automation error resulted in over one point seven
billion dollars of unlawful debt notices. The Australian Public Service Commissioner, who released the findings on Friday, said the scheme was a failure of government and apologize for the public services role in it.
A fifty cent public transport fair trial underway in Queensland at the moment, will be extended permanently after both major parties in the state committed to continuing the cheaper transport fares if they win October's election. Queensland Premier Stephen Miles said Labour would lock in the fifty cent fairs quote
forever if they're successful at next month's election. Opposition later David Crucifully also announced over the weekend that the LNP will extend the current fifty cent fare if there's a change of government.
And today's good news, the US Food and Drug Administration the FDA has approved the first over the counter hearing a device. The device is compatible with the newest Apple Airport's pro which were released last week in the US. Acting director for the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Michelle Tava, so the device is quote another step that advances the availability, accessibility, and acceptability of hearing support for adults.
Gizelle Pelico is the woman at the center of a rape trial in France at the moment, she says she was raped while unconscious over a period of ten years. Now.
Her ex husband has admitted to orchestrating the assaults, but the global interest in this story has exploded in recent weeks, and it's one that we might not actually have ever known about or even discussed on this podcast if it weren't for Gazelle herself after she explicitly requested the proceedings be made public in the hopes of helping other women in the future. Chloe, this is an incredibly disturbing case and one that you've covered for us on the Daily Os.
The details are really distressing, as we mentioned at the top of the podcast, but central to this story are the wishes from Gazelle the alleged victim, to open up a conversation about abuse. So let's take it back a little bit. Where this case come from. Where does this story start?
So m At the center of this case is Gazelle Pellico and Dominique Pellico. They're both seventy one years old. They're now separated, but the pair got married when they were both twenty one. They have three children and seven grandchildren, and they lived together in a small village called Mazan in the south of France, and speaking to the court, it was Gazelle's understanding that they were a strong couple.
It was in Mazan that Dominique was initially investigated by police when in November twenty twenty, he was caught filming up women's skirts at a local supermarket. Police searched Dominique's computer and said that they found a folder labeled abuses containing over twenty thousand images of an unconscious woman being raped by several different men.
And that woman was Gazelle.
Correct.
Okay, So French police were actually investigating Dominique for a completely different offense when they discovered all this evidence of far more serious crimes. Started as this upskirting case and has clearly evolved into something far more sinister.
Yeah, they inadvertently stumbled upon this footage when they were investigating Dominique of separate offenses. And Gizelle said that the search of Dominique's computer and those early police investigations is what saved her life. She had no memory of the rapes and did not recognize any of the men in the images that were shown to her by police, and that's because her then husband had admitted to drugging her.
Dominique has pleaded guilty to all the charges against him, which includes aggravated rape, drugging, and violating the privacy of his wife.
Okay, so that brings us to the court case that's currently playing out. Gizelle was being frequently sedated. She is the woman in the images uncovered by police being assaulted by several men, but she didn't know about the assaults. How has she described her memory of that time?
This part is pretty distressing. During her testimony, Gazelle recounted experiencing total blackouts beginning in twenty eleven. By twenty thirteen, she became increasingly worried that she was developing Alzheimer's disease due to chronic memory lapses, weight loss, and hair loss. She said, I didn't understand why I had these moments like this.
Wow.
I mean, it's unimaginable to consider that she's going through this kind of personal turmoil of a health crisis and feeling unwell and having no idea that that was just the tip of this horrifying iceberg. What we have learned over the course of this case is that the extent of abuse against Gizelle was extreme and it was calculated, and Dominique, her ex husband, has admitted to that. Can you take us through a bit more about the revelations from him.
Yeah, this was just the beginning of a lot more to come. Dominic did give more details about the abuse and so it is very disturbing if you're not in the right space to hear it, please just skip ahead. Dominique admitted to putting sleeping pills into his wife's evening meals to sedate her before raping her and arranging for others to rape her from twenty eleven to twenty twenty. He told police that while Gazelle was unconscious, he invited a number of men to their home to film them raping her.
We've heard that there were several men involved. There are dozens of men in this court case who are facing charges. What do we know about them? How did they end up in Dominique and Gazelle's home? How were they engaged?
Dominique met most of these men via what is a now banned online chat for him called Coco and this has been very much on the radar of police for quite some time. It's been used in the past to coordinate sex crimes and other serious offenses across Europe.
In terms of the men, is there a specific profile? Do we know how old they were?
After reviewing the footage from Dominique's computer, police made a list of eighty three suspects and they've identified and charged fifty. The men who allegedly assaulted Gazelle were aged between twenty six and seventy.
Four before we get to what lies ahead for those fifty men who have been charged. Dominique, the ex husband of the victim, has pleaded guilty to all the charges against him. Now, just to recap, that includes aggravated rape, drugging, violating the privacy of his wife. There are some other violations as well against him.
What are those so m On top of those charges you mentioned, he's also accused of violating the privacy of his daughter and two daughters in law after illicit photos of them were also found on his devices. For all of these crimes, Dominique faces a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison. His lawyer described his actions as quote a form of addiction, and told reporters that Dominique is ashamed of what he did. It is unforgivable.
When we shared this story on our feed that you wrote for us, Chloe, lots of people in the comments were really surprised that twenty years is the maximum sentencing that he's facing. A lot of outrage people said that they didn't feel like it was a severe enough sentence for these crimes. Obviously, sentencing is still to come, and these are the limitations of the French law. But there are fifty other men involved in this case too, so what about them.
So most of the other fifty defendants have been charged with aggravated rape and they could also face up to twenty years if they're convicted. Many have pleaded not guilty, with some saying that they thought they were participating in a consensual role playing scenario between the couple where Gazelle just pretended to be asleep. Gazelle has disputed those claims, saying they knew exactly what they were doing and what shape I was in. These videos are scenes of horror
for me. Similarly, Dominique said everyone knew Gazelle was drugged and unconscious, adding that quote every individual had free will and could have left the premier.
So a big part of this story, Chloe, is to do with how much of it is in the public domain. In many court cases, you know, we often really struggle to report on them. Details can be quite limited. Courtrooms can be closed, and that's for many reasons, to protect identities or because of legal orders. How is it with this particular case, a really unique situation, that we have so much detailed information.
You're right, so under French law, complainants have the right to remain entirely private during a trial, so we might see pseudonyms like John Doe or Jane Doe, and that's how we will never know who is behind these cases. But instead Gazelle Pelico has insisted on complete total publicity, and that's quote from her.
Has she said why she wants her name published and these allegations aired.
She said to reporters, so when other women wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of miss Now this has been met with widespread support from people in France women across the world who have commended Gizelle for her bravery. That is not an easy thing to do, to put your name to something that is as horrific as what we heard in that.
Trial if we zoom out a little bit, and I think this kind of ties in to the outrage about maybe current French legislation, that it doesn't go far enough, that it's not harsh enough, and what that tells us about the country's relationship with women's rights. There's actually another quite high profile case in the spotlight in France now, specifically about sexual abuse and women's rights. What do we know about that story?
There have been growing calls to change the country's attitudes towards sexual violence, notably led by high profile French actor Judith god Resh. In February, god Resh, who's fifty one, publicly accused of director she worked with at the age of fourteen of sexually assaulting her on a film set. And there was an opinion piece I read from The Washington that was written by a French journalist. Her name
is Rakaia Dalio. What she was arguing in the piece was that France has been slower to embrace the principles that we saw in the Me Too movement at the end of twenty seventeen. She suggested that the support we've seen with god Resch and now what we've seen with Pelico quote signaled that perhaps the larger culture here is finally ready to push back.
In practical terms for women in France, what does that actually look like, what do they want to change? Specifically?
It's opened up a conversation about what the French government defines as rape. Advocates are pushing French lawmakers to explicitly include the concept of consent in the legal definition of rape. In March, President Emmanuel Macron expressed his support for this change, which could mark a significant step forward in addressing sexual violence in the country.
But it's obviously been a tumultuous year in French politics, an election, a change of prime minister, a limp, lots going on, and I'm sure a lot of women were hopeful after those comments in March from President Macron. And maybe now that the Pelico case is dominating global headlines that will kind of spur on lawmakers to get this done sooner.
Yeah, give it the momentum it needs.
Back to this trial, What is ahead? What are the next steps?
The trial will continue and for the next three months until December twenty and I'm sure we can expect the conversation around this case and women's rights activism in France to evolve.
Chloe, thank you so much for taking us through that today, a really distressing but important case. We will pop some links in the show notes to support groups. If this episode has raised anything for you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Os. We will be back with another episode tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Maddin and I'm a proud Arunda Bujelung Calkatin woman. From Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.