I’m sure I was drugged and raped too, says the daughter of the Monster of Avignon – as she says there is ‘no way’ he will be freed
The daughter of Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his ex-wife to have her raped by dozens of strangers, is convinced that she too was raped by her father.
Caroline Darian says photos of her sleeping in bed – among thousands of images saved to a laptop to document the serial rape of her mother, Gisèle – show her in underwear she did not own.
In her first interview since Pelicot, also known as the Monster of Avignon, was jailed, she said he was meant to die in prison after his decade-long reign of abuse.
“He’s a dangerous man,” she said. “There’s no way he can get out.”
Ms Darian, now 46, told how she was invited to a French police station shortly after detectives began their investigation into Pelicot four years ago following his arrest for upskirting women in a supermarket.
Officers showed her two photos of a woman in bed. “I had trouble recognizing myself from the beginning,” she said.
“All they want to know is if I’m in either of them,” she writes in her recently published book I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again.
‘The first photo shows a young woman with dark brown hair and straight bangs lying on a bed to her left.
Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, believes she too was drugged and raped by her father Dominique
Dominique Pelicot, dubbed the Monster of Avignon after the enormity of his transgression was exposed
Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse after hearing the verdict of the court that sentenced her ex-husband to the maximum prison term of twenty years for committing and orchestrating her mass rapes with dozens of strangers he recruited online
‘She’s wearing a thick white pajama top and beige underwear. She is sleeping, but the duvet covering her has been pushed aside so that her buttocks are visible.
‘How did he manage to take my picture in the middle of the night without waking me up? Where did the underwear come from since I’m sure it’s not mine? Did he drug me? Did he go beyond the pictures?’
Ms Darian – not her real name – told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that she is convinced her father, now 72, abused her. During Pelicot’s trial, she said she was “probably raped,” telling the judge, “It’s not a hypothesis; it is reality. I know.’
Pelicot has always denied abusing or raping her, although he has offered conflicting explanations for the photos. Last month he was sentenced to 20 years for rape and sex crimes. Fifty co-defendants received sentences ranging from three to fifteen years.