now on bbc news, the big cases: my husband the monster. a warning this programme contains some upsetting scenes and descriptions of sexual violence. i'm a rapist, like the others in this courtroom. they knew everything. they treated me like a rag doll. like a garbage bag. the abuse went on for years, in secret. a husband drugging his wife. he would put her into a coma state for around seven hours each time he did this. allthe time, dominique pelicot was filming, sometimes with a fixed camera, sometimes with his phone, but every time he was filming.

strangers invited to act out their darkest urges. the video evidence would show a smiling man looking at the camera, sometimes doing a thumbs up — extremely confident of what he was doing. i think the scale of it is - what shocked a lot of people, because there are at least 50 men who are indicted. - is there not, within you, any shred of feeling of responsibility for what you did? translation: i have my share of responsibility. . applause. but then the wife stands defiant, casting off her shame, and challenging us all to ask hard questions about how such horrors could happen and how to stop the next dominique pelicot.

mazan is in many ways a very picturesque, classic village in provence. it's in the middle of a wine—growing region, a fruit—growing region. mazan is a very small village, a very quiet, quiet area with a lot of retired people. it's very sunny, and a lot of people come here because there are beautiful landscapes. you have beautiful stone houses with pastel shutters. it's a vibrant village, it's a village with life. it has a school, it has a pharmacy, it has a hairdresser�*s, a baker's. people know each other there. and then you also have couples who retire there from paris, which was the case of the pelicots. they lived on the edge of the village, in a little

house with a small pool. they moved in mazan in 2011. they had a lot of friends, they are very social. they know their neighbours very well and they have a lot of friends there. the story of dominique pelicot�*s unmasking begins at this supermarket in the nearby town of carpentras. a curtain is about to be lifted here, a first glimpse into a world of almost unthinkable depravity. dominique pelicot was in a supermarket, and he took with him a little camera on his phone, and he was trying to take some pictures under the clothes of some woman. speaks french.

often nothing is done about this type of crime. but in this particular case, there was a very determined security guard in the supermarket. he stopped this man, and he also convinced the three women who had been targeted to complain to the police. dominique pelicot is arrested and released on bail. but, crucially, the local police decide to keep investigating. back home with gisele, his wife of 47 years, dominique tries to shrug it off as a moment of madness. she was absolutely shocked

when she heard about that and she told her husband, well, "i will support you, "but you need to present... "well, to apologise to these women and you need to receive "counselling, therapy. "and if you do that, i will stand by your side." translation: it was at the end of the week, a friday - - i still remember it. this was happening in my city, so i was asked - to examine this gentleman. | i said that in my opinion there| was something that did not fit. there was an inconsistency . between the man, presented as a kind grandfather, and the act that he . had committed. the psychiatrist is on to something. the police now begin to examine pelicot�*s phone and computer, and stumble upon thousands of explicit videos and photos from the couple's bedroom. the full horror of the abuse gisele suffered is about to be revealed.

the policemen asked them to come to see them. she's sitting down in the police station and the policeman tells her, "well, i'm going to say to "you some very difficult things. "be ready. " and he shows her a photography of her naked, and he asks her, "is it you? "is that you in the photography?" she says, "yes, it's me." and he shows her another photography where she is naked, but she's being raped. and he tells her, "well, we have a lot of photographies "like this, where you are raped by other men, and we think "that your husband was asking these men to come "and to rape you." it was hard to recognise myself. the officer showed me a second photo, and a third.

i asked him to stop. it was unbearable. i was lifeless in my bed and a man was raping me. my world fell apart. i'm speaking now, not for myself, but for all the women who are drugged and abused. at this moment, her husband is also held by other policemen in another room, so it's going to be the last time she will see him until the trial. so for four years, she will not see him again. we know that dominique pelicot continued to drug and rape gisele pelicot until the very last moment he was finally arrested. so even while he knew that police were searching his home and looking at his digital records. before the arrest, the pelicots seemed a happy, close—knit family. gisele suspected nothing. we've been together for 50 years. i've been a happy woman,

fulfilled, with three children and seven grandchildren. he was a caring father who listened. a kind man whom i trusted completely. we shared our laughter and our sorrows. how many times have i told him how lucky i am to have him by my side? on retirement, the couple moved to mazan from the paris area. gisele had worked in admin for the electricity company edf. dominique had been an electrician. it's a close family. dominique and gisele pelicot have three children — a daughter, caroline, and two sons, david and florian. and, yeah, they have a very, very... they had a very, very good relationship. but in secret, dominique is now exploring a world of online depravity,

using one particular website to share his violent sexual impulses. coco was a website, which of course has now been shut down, which was a website where you could meet people, exchange imagery, lots of which was illegal, sell drugs. it had several chatroom facilities. the accused men who were using it were using it to seek sexual encounters or sexual imagery of certain descriptions. for nearly a decade, perhaps far longer, he uses coco to invite dozens of men to the family home, to the couple's bedroom. when he was connecting on his website, he was using a term — so, "a son insu" — "without her knowledge". this was a chatroom which dominique pelicot used a lot. this website is able to have a geographic area,

so it's easier when you want to have a meeting with these people. one of them described it as almost like a supermarket. it was like a menu. you would go on and you would decide what you wanted. he was sending them some pictures of his wife naked. of course, she wasn't aware that he was taking these pictures. gisele knows nothing of this. that's because she's being drugged by her husband. according to what he said, he was telling them the truth — that she would be drugged and that she would be sleeping. he said he would put her into a coma state for around seven hours, each time he did this, which would allow him, again, very methodically, to undress herfrom her pyjamas, dress her in various items that he had chosen,

invite men to rape her, rape her himself, take photos of her, change her back into her pyjamas, having cleaned her, in, again, a very sort of medical manner. he said that he did this to her two to three times a week, which is more than the videos show. the question is, how did he get the expertise? how did he get the dosing to this point? he says that he simply experimented with the drugs and he would crush them into her food. she would often go to bed and read, and he would come in with a little tray and a bowl of raspberry ice cream, which was herfavourite flavour of ice cream. and she thought, "well, this is such a lovely guy. "he's such a love." not for a single second did i doubt this man. . i would have given him i both my hands to cut off. over the years, the drugs take

a heavy toll on her health. gisele becomes confused, even fearful she's dying. i'm convinced i've got alzheimer's. i dominique takes me to see - a neurologist who reassures me that it's not that disease. and dominique also reassures me. - my brother—in—law, a doctor, says i need a scan, _ and dominique comes with me. i think i'm going crazy- because i'm so absent minded, and my friends notice it too. and all this time, the rapes continue with strict rules established for the men who come at night. all the time, it was the same. it was quite a ritual. dominique pelicot was asking the men to come to his house, to park not exactly in front of the house, but in a more quiet area. they were coming, they were taking off their shoes. they were washing their hands because they didn't want

to wake gisele pelicot up, so their hands had to be quite warm. theyjust took their clothes off and they would go into the room to rape her. so who are these men? they've all connected on the same website — a site that links people living close to each other — so most are from mazan or nearby. three quarters of the men have children. half are in steady relationships. almost half have criminal records. but they range in age from 27 to 7a and have a wide variety ofjobs. they are a mixed bag and, you could say, a cross—section of french society. it is possibly one of the most i shocking aspects of this case — how easily he found 50, maybe 100 men in the i neighbouring area willing to participate in this, - in these scenarios.

it's harrowing to think about. because it suggests that it's everywhere? yes. well, i think it's something that is difficult to think- about, and we don't want. to think about it, but, yes, i'm certain that there - are other dominique pelicots and other men who do . that because, you know, look how easy it was. one of the men, a nurse, agrees to talk to us anonymously about why he accepted dominique pelicot�*s invitation. he'll later be found guilty of rape. ila dit que c�*etait pour les besoins du couple... translation: he told me that it was for the couple's needs to spice up their evening together. they visualise this kind of film. it excites them. he asked me to undress, and he undresses. and there i am, naked. he tells me that he is going to tell his wife to get ready. he disappears. it's not even a minute before he comes back. at that moment i am terrified. i am paralysed, my brain is going in all directions.

why didn't you leave at that point? pourquoi vous n�*avez pas tourne a partir a ce moment? c'est ca la question... translation: that's the question. - why? because i was paralysed, i was terrified, i was stunned. i would even say i was fascinated by what was happening. is there not within you any shred of... ..feeling of responsibility for what you did? j'ai ma part de responsabilite... translation: i have my share of responsibility. . in this case, there isn't one responsibility. there aren't two responsibilities. there aren't three. there are a multitude of responsibilities that led to mrs pelicot being traumatised and mistreated for years. four years after dominique pelicot�*s arrest, the trial begins. of the many dozens of men who came to the couple's house, prosecutors have charged 50.

the trial is a shock, a revelation for france. at first, when gisele pelicot arrived in september, she was very discreet. she was a bit shy. she was very stressed. but it's at this point that gisele makes an extraordinary decision — to waive her right to privacy. instead, she wants an open trial. and it seems the world is now watching. she had these sunglasses- that she used to hide her eyes. to be in this room knowing that | there would be all eyes on her. | as each week went by, she presented herself as stronger and stronger and stronger as the case went on. in court, dominique declares that he is guilty, but no more and no less than all the other men on trial. i'm a rapist, like the others in this courtroom. they knew everything.

they cannot say the contrary. you're not born a pervert — you become one. but almost all the accused plead not guilty, saying they were confused, intimidated, mistaken. translation: for many of them, they were involved _ in a libertine project with the couple. they thought it was a couple's arrangement, only to discover that it was actually a sinister and criminal scheme devised by the husband. i think it's bullshit. if you're in a situation i where you're, you know, in an intimate contact - with somebody and you're not sure they want to be i involved in whatever's happening, you stop. less than half of them admitted raping. even some of the men said, "well, my brain switched itself "off and my brain was cut off from the rest of my body, "and i simply didn't know what i was doing."

some of them said that they were victims, that they were collateral victims of dominique pelicot, because he had told them what to do, and they were simply following instructions. and one of them, who was a former record shop worker in avignon, said, you know, "i was curious. "yes, i did rape." he also discussed with dominique pelicot drugging one of his own girlfriends with a view to her being raped. for those pleading not guilty, there is one huge obstacle — something rare in any rape trial. translation: one of | the particularities of this trial is that everything - was filmed and meticulously recorded by dominique pelicot. it can be short video, long videos. it's always very clear. you see everything. the light is strong, and it's absolutely awful. on many of the videos, it's possible to listen i to mrs pelicot snoring sometimes, and it's.

even more disturbing. it's possible to listen - to her choking when some of the men are abusing her. so it's absolutely obvious that she is sleeping. and when the defendants, a lot of them pretend that they didn't understand that she was completely unconscious, that she was sleeping. and with this video, you understand that they are lying. when we were looking at the dates one day, i she said, "but that was my birthday evening," so... i or the 31st of december or valentine's day, - or to discover that it had happened in her- daughter's beach house. so, in her daughter's. bed in the beach house. so the circumstances were extremely, - extremely disturbing. sometimes you would have an accused man who said, "no, no, no, ididn�*t.

"i didn't do anything. "i don't even remember going to the bedroom," or "i did go into the bedroom, but perhaps i'd been drugged." and then the video evidence would show a smiling man looking at the camera, sometimes doing a thumbs up, extremely confident of what he was doing. there was a turning pointjust before the trial, when she sat down with her lawyers and looked at the video evidence and was extremely angry. there was a moment of indignation, her lawyer said, and she thought, "well, you know, i'm not "hiding any more. "this needs to be seen. "people need to see what's happened to me." i realised i had nothing to be ashamed of. - i had nothing to be ashamed of. i've been raped 100 times, and it was difficult to takel the decision to broadcast these videos, but it also allowed us l to find out the truth. the shame is not ours

to have, it's theirs. i it was difficult for anybody in court to see those things, but everybody knew that it was about bearing witness. applause. merci! the videos in the trial established gisele as a society—shaking, transformative figure — a victim refusing to feel shame. i'm not sure she had prepared for the absolute staggering amount of support she had from all across the world. applause. ijust hope that her case will help - justice to change laws. she understood that she wasn't the defendant here and that she could just walk in that courtroom and be proud of her. she do it to give strength l to all the women who don't

have the courage to go on trial to fight. - translation: i was deeply touched by this outpouring l of support, which gives me a sense of responsibility. thanks to all of you, i have the strength to fight this battle to the end — a battle that i dedicate to the women and men around the world who are victims of sexual violence. to all these victims, i want to say today, look around you — you're not alone. i would thank her for speaking up for victims of sexual violence, because there's so many of us. i don't doubt that every woman has been through something. something. you know? and in that way, she represents all the women in the world. the case is an inspiration, a call to action. but inevitably, there are voices of dissent, sceptics.

translation: what comes out often around the town - is that there haven't been any deaths. i i would say that what would - have been bad would have been if he had killed his wife, but in this case, - it didn't happen. ifeel like you're trying to diminish what happened. yes, i'm diminishing it because i think it. could have been much worse. when kids are involvedl or a woman killed, then that is very serious - because you can't go back. in this case the woman i is going to have to rebuild herself, that's for sure. that's very hard for her l and herfamily, but there haven't been any deaths. i think it's a perfect proof that a lot of political men, especially, absolutely doesn't realise the problem. the problem is huge. the problem should be taken very seriously. and it's not.

as the trial moves towards a conclusion, a troubling question remains. was it only gisele who suffered? on the hard drive there are a couple of images and a couple of photo montages of dominique pelicot�*s daughter, caroline, an adult, in a sleeping position, in underwear on a bed. when she saw them, she said, "that's not my underwear." she asked her father repeatedly through the trial — and these were some of the most emotional moments in the trial. "tell me what you did to me. "i know that you drugged me and abused me." and he consistently said, "i didn't do anything to you." and at one point... well, at two points, actually, she shouted at him, "you're lying!" there's another question — when did dominique pelicot first begin to rape? french investigators

are now linking him to two much older crimes. dna evidence confirms one attempted rape, which pelicot now admits. but he denies another rape, when a woman was strangled to death. translation: we are looking at two cases that are - old cases, so cases that have never been solved. the first one i took care of was the case of sophie narme, who was raped and strangled in 1991. the second one is an attempted rape in the paris region in 1999. both worked in estate agents on the ground floor. in both cases, we have the use of a specific product called ether. both were tied up and violently assaulted. we really have a lot of similarities. those cold cases have been reopened and there's an investigation ongoing. what is clear is there was a pattern of offending over decades, and potentially a few moments to have stopped this

person at earlier points. all this reinforces the image of a deeply manipulative man living a double life, unable to feel empathy. he's very arrogant and, yeah, very, very, very confident. it can be surprising. he could fear the people in the room. he could fear his wife, his daughter who hates him. but he doesn't. he doesn't. he behave and he just stay there and look at everybody. translation: what was striking about my examination _ was that on one hand, i had the story of a mr pelicot, father of three, . grandfather, came to retire in the south of france, - appreciated by his neighbours. and on the other hand, this individual who had| succeeded over the years in setting up— a perverted scenario. it's a mechanism that is well

known, called splitting. - splitting is a psychological mechanism where you - compartmentalise your mind almost like a hard drive. - he was described as someone who was a very clever manipulator, who had a lack of empathy, a lack of introspection, an inability to imagine himself in someone else's shoes. chanting and clapping. as the trial ends, there's an outpouring of support for gisele. the guilty verdicts for all the men, and a maximum 20—year sentence for dominique pelicot, no surprise, but this case stopped being about the rapists a long time ago. from crowd: bravo, gisele! instead, it's become the story of one woman who's made us all think harder — about consent, about drugging, about courage.

translation: i want to express my deepest gratitude _ to all the people who have supported me throughout this ordeal. i was overwhelmed by your support and i drew from it the strength to come back every day to face these long days of hearings. i wanted to open the doors of this trial last september so that society could see what was happening. i have never regretted this decision. i have confidence now in our capacity, collectively, to find a better future, in which men and women alike can live harmoniously together, with respect and mutual understanding. thank you.

live from washington. this is bbc news. a memorial service at magdeburg cathedral attended by germany's leaders for victims of the market attack. a nine year old is among five people killed in the attack — two hundred others are injured. a senior palestinian official tells the bbc that a ceasefire deal between israel and hamas in gaza is 90% complete. and after days of negotiations — joe biden signs a us government spending bill into law, officially averting a shutdown. a memorial service has been held in the german city of magdeburg —

for the victims of a deadly attack on a christmas market on friday.