‘My father should die in prison’

The daughter of Dominique Pelicot, the French man imprisoned for drugging and raping his wife of 50 years and allowing other men to rape her says he deserves to “die in prison.”

Caroline Darian, 46, says she lost “what was a normal life” when her mother Gisèle Pelicot told her she had been repeatedly drugged by her husband for about 10 years so that other men could rape her, Darian told BBC Radio 4.

“I remember I shouted, I cried, I even insulted him,” Darian said. “It was like an earthquake. A tsunami,” Darian said.

Dominique Pelicot was found guilty on all charges in December. Fifty men he recruited online to come rape and sexually assault his unconscious wife were also jailed.

He was sentenced to 20 years in jail, and his daughter now says he “should die in prison.”

“He is a dangerous man,” Darian told the outlet.

During his three-month trial, Darian testified that she believes she was also a victim of her father’s sick scheme and identified herself as the nude, unconscious woman who appeared in two pictures on his computer. She later referred to her father as “the worst sexual predator of the last 20 years.”

When she was first faced with the photos, Darian couldn’t recognize herself as the woman, telling BBC, “I lived a dissociation effect. I had difficulties recognizing myself from the start.”

“Then the police officer said: ‘Look, you have the same brown mark on your cheek… it’s you.’ I looked at those two photos differently then… I was laying on my left side like my mother, in all her pictures.”

“I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don’t have any evidence,” she said.

“And that’s the case for how many victims? They are not believed because there’s no evidence. They’re not listened to, not supported,” she added.

Now, five years after learning of his abuse, Darian says living as the daughter of both the abuser and the victim has been “a terrible burden.”

“When I look back I don’t really remember the father that I thought he was. I look straight to the criminal, the sexual criminal he is,” she said.

Now, looking to use her experience to bring awareness to other cases of victims who are drugged for sexual assault, Darian authored the book, “I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again.”

“He knew perfectly well what he did, and he’s not sick,” she said. “He is a dangerous man. There is no way he can get out. No way.”