Monster of Avignon Dominique Pelicot’s daughter Caroline Darian makes damning statement in first interview since his conviction in France’s biggest-ever rape trial

The daughter of the Monster of Avignon has spoken out for the first time since her father’s conviction in France’s largest ever rape trial and delivered a damning verdict.

Caroline Darian remained a pillar of strength at her mother’s side during the grotesque trial of Dominique Pelicot, 71, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping and organizing the mass rape of his wife Gisèle.

While his fifty co-defendants have also been found guilty, with sentences ranging from three to fifteen years, some suspended, for their part in France’s most notorious sex crimes trial.

Although this has never been admitted in court, the 46-year-old communications manager from Paris believes that she too was the victim of vile abuse by her father.

The majority of the gruesome photos and videos meticulously found on Pelicot’s hard drives showed several strangers abusing an unconscious Gisele.

But some showed Caroline, also sleeping, in various states of undress.

Talking about the process for the first time the Guardian Describing her horrors, she said: “I felt anger. They’re cowards [the men convicted of rape].’

Shockingly adding: ‘I was viewed as a sex object by many of them during this process.’

On Dominque’s computer equipment, which was seized after his arrest, French authorities found a folder labeled “my naked daughter.”

In this secret file were two images of Caroline, then in her thirties, sleeping in beige underwear.

When shown to the police, Darian claimed that she had not slept in this position, that she had never seen that particular underwear before and that she would never have gone to bed dressed like that.

Following this revelation, she told the court that she was convinced that she too had probably been raped and abused by Dominique.

Although there is no direct evidence that the married mother of one was sexually abused, she strongly believes that she was drugged by her father. She says she will never know for sure whether she was also raped, leaving her locked in “doubt and silence” and unable to ever know the truth.

“I consider myself the forgotten victim of this trial,” Caroline told the court.

‘Gisele was definitely raped. Of course she was chemically subjected. The only difference between Gisele and me is that there is evidence for her. For me it is an absolute tragedy.’

During the trial, Dominque continued to deny that he had ever drugged or abused his daughter, with the 71-year-old saying in his closing statement: “I would like to look my daughter in the eye and tell her that I did nothing.” [to her].’

She jumped up and shouted in a fit of rage, ‘I’ll never see you again! You will die alone like a dog!’

Caroline briefly entered a mental institution when her mental health deteriorated due to the fallout from her father’s arrest.

Since then, she has also founded a pressure group called ‘Don’t Send Me To Sleep’ to raise awareness about ‘chemical submission’.

“You can’t imagine the sadness and loneliness,” she said.

‘I have some of his DNA. And it’s hard to be the daughter of the biggest sex criminal of the last 10, 20, even 30 years, and at the same time be the daughter of an icon like my mother… I don’t know if it’s better to be the daughter of Gisèle or worse as the daughter of Dominique Pelicot. I’ll have to live with that.’

Despite this, she told the Guardian: ‘I’m really proud of my mother. She opened the door. She has taken the lead for other victims of sexual violence.

She has told them that they are not alone anymore. That’s strength. So to me she’s a hero… And she did that brilliantly.’

In powerful 90-minute testimony in court in Avignon, Gisele also told how the discovery brought her to the brink of suicide and left her daughter in a psychiatric ward.

‘We had everything, we had a great life. I don’t understand how this could have happened.

‘I only wanted one thing and that was to disappear. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to get in the car with my dog ​​and end it all.’

‘I had to tell my children that their father was in custody. I called my son-in-law and told my daughter and told them, ‘He raped me.’ Then I heard my daughter scream a deep scream that I can’t get out of my head.

‘When I told my sons about it, they didn’t really believe it. They retreated.

‘[That] In the evening the children kept calling and saying ‘don’t disappear’… they were afraid I was going to die.”

Caroline herself told the judge as soon as she heard from her own mother exactly what kind of monster her father was.

‘Then my mother called me to say there was a problem with my father. “I imagine he’s in intensive care, he’s dying,” she said.

“But she tells me my father has been drugging her for years so strangers can rape her in her own bed.

‘She says she has seen pictures of what happened to her and the police want to show her videos of what happened.

‘I had completely lost my foundation. Luckily my husband [Pierre] was there and so was my six year old son. We took him with us so he couldn’t hear his mother’s screams.’

Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified.

Of the 83 men involved in the abuse campaign, 51 between the ages of 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by police.

Many denied raping Gisèle Pélicot, said they had been manipulated by her then-husband or claimed they believed she consented.