ReutersThey are young, old, burly, skinny, black and white. They include firefighters, truck drivers, soldiers, security guards, a journalist and a DJ.
These are the 50 men accused of raping Giselle Bellicot at the request of her husband, Dominique Bellicot, 72, who drugged her for ten years with medical sleeping pills.
The fact that they widely represent a microcosm of French society means that they have been dubbed Mr. Everyman (Mr. Everyman).
They are scheduled to be sentenced next week, at the end of the trial that began in September. If found guilty, they collectively face more than 600 years in prison.
A few act defiantly, but mostly they look down while answering the judges' questions, occasionally looking up to catch the attention of their lawyers for reassurance.
Warning: You may find some details of this story disturbing
All 50 people come from towns and villages within a 50-kilometre (30-mile) radius of the Balikots' Mazan village.
Some defense attorneys saw their nature as a valuable line of defense. “Ordinary people do extraordinary things,” said Antoine Menier, a lawyer representing three defendants.
He told the BBC: “I think almost everyone could end up in a situation – well, maybe not quite like this – but they could be vulnerable to committing a serious crime.”
“My body raped her, but my mind did not.”
The plaintiffs based their requests to the court for sentencing on aggravating factors. How many times did the defendants come to Pellicott's home, did they sexually touch Giselle Pellicott, and if they entered her?
Joseph C., 69, a retired athletic trainer and doting grandfather, faces four years in prison on the sexual assault charge if found guilty. This is the most lenient sentence prosecutors have requested.
At the other end of the scale is Roman V, 63, who faces 18 years in prison. He was intentionally infected with HIV, yet he is accused of raping Giselle Bellico on six separate occasions without wearing any protection.
Prosecutors were able to go into this level of detail because, unusually for a rape trial, there was an astonishing amount of evidence, as there is for a rape trial. The alleged assaults were filmed over the course of nearly a decade by Dominique Bellicot.
He pleaded guilty to all charges and told the court that all 50 of his co-accused were also guilty.
All the video evidence meant that none of the men could deny that they had gone to the Bellicotes' home. But the majority strongly object to aggravated rape charges, which could lead to heavy penalties.
French rape law defines rape as any sexual act committed by “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.” It has no indication of any need for approval.
Therefore, they also say that they could not be guilty of rape because they were not aware that Giselle Bellico was not in a position to give consent.
One defense lawyer said: “There can be no crime without intent to commit it.”
“My body raped her, but my mind did not rape her,” volunteer firefighter Christian L insisted, in an example of the twisted logic offered by some men.
The only man among the 50 who has not been accused of raping Giselle Bellicot is Jean-Pierre Maréchal, 63, who has been dubbed “Dominique Bellicot's disciple.”
After learning how to drug his wife in order to assault her, he did so for five years and admitted it.
He blames his crimes on meeting Dominique Bellicot, whom he says was “reassured, like a cousin”. The prosecution is demanding a 17-year prison sentence.
“He was manipulated and deceived by Bellicott.”
Ahmed T., a 54-year-old plumber who has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 30 years, said that if he wanted to rape someone, he would not have chosen a woman in her sixties.
Radwan A., a 40-year-old unemployed man, said that if he had begun to rape Giselle, he would not have allowed her husband to film videos.
Some also say they were intimidated by Dominique Bellicot, who one lawyer told the BBC was an “odious character”.
Nurse Radwan E., crying, told the courtroom that he was so afraid of him that he could not leave the bedroom. “You probably couldn't tell from the videos, but I was really terrified!” He told the judges.
Others assert that they were offered drug-laced drinks and therefore cannot remember the encounter, although Dominique Bellicot has denied ever doing so.
However, the majority assert that Dominique Bellicot manipulated or deceived them, convincing them that they were engaging in a sexual game with a consensual couple.
“They were put in a position where they were defrauded,” Christophe Broschi, Joseph Sy's lawyer, told the BBC. “They were taken for a ride.”
But Dominique Bellicot always said he made it very clear to the men that his wife had no knowledge of the plot.
He said he gave them instructions to avoid waking her or leaving traces of their presence there, such as warming their hands before touching his wife, or not smelling perfume or cigarettes.
“They all knew, they couldn't deny it.”
Getty ImagesFamilies scramble for answers
Since September, the 50 men have appeared, one after another, before the court in Avignon.
Usually in rape cases, personal investigations can take several days.
In this trial, because of the sheer number of defendants involved, it was condensed into a few hours at most. Their lives have been dissected at record speed, often turning a court session into a series of stories of abuse and trauma.
Simone M., a 43-year-old construction worker, said he was raped when he was 11 by a family friend who used him to herd livestock in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.
Jean-Luc L, 46, a father of four, told the court how he and his family left Vietnam on a canoe when he was a child and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for several years before moving to France.
Fabian S, a 39-year-old man with several previous convictions including drug trafficking and sexual assault of a minor, was abused and beaten by foster parents from a very early age. Like many others, he said it was only during court-ordered psychiatrist appointments that he realized that his traumatic and foggy childhood memories actually constituted rape.
Many of the defendants' wives, partners and family members were called to give personal statements. They also scrambled for answers as they sought to understand how the men in their lives could end up “falling into this kind of situation,” as one woman put it.
Christian's father said.
The firefighter is also being investigated for possession of child abuse images, as are four others, and faces 16 years in prison. “Something must have happened,” his father wondered out loud. “He must have become depressed.”
“I will always be there for him”
Corinne, the ex-wife of 54-year-old Terry Ba, a former construction worker, said he was always “nice” and “respectful” to her and their children, and appeared to leave the door open for a reconciliation.
“When they told me what he was accused of, I said: ‘Never, that is impossible… I don’t understand what he is doing here at all.’” She believed that the death of their 18-year-old son was the reason behind it. She led her ex-husband into a deep depression, and he began He started drinking and eventually called Dominique Bellicot.
The ex-girlfriend of Joan K. said: The 27-year-old is the youngest of the defendants and a former soldier in the French army: “I will always be by his side no matter what happens.”
He has denied raping Giselle Bellicot on two occasions. While he knew she would be unconscious, he said he did not realize she had not given consent.
Through tears, a woman named Samira said she had spent the past three-and-a-half years “looking for answers” as to why Jerome V went to the Bellicote team six times.
She said, crying: “We had sex every day, and I don’t understand why he had to go look elsewhere.” She is still in a relationship with Jerome V, who was working as a greengrocer at the time of his arrest.
He's one of the few to admit to raping Gisele, saying he liked the idea of ”controlling her” – but blamed it on his “uncontrollable sex life.”
Giselle Bellico: They raped me in good conscience
Many of the defendants' former and current partners underwent tests to see if they had also been drugged like Giselle. One woman said she would “always have a terrible suspicion” that the “respectable, considerate, kind man” she knew had also abused her without her knowledge.
From the beginning of the trial, there has been much talk about the need to find an element that links all these men together.
The common denominator — besides the fact that all the men went to the Bleicotts of their own free will — “was nowhere to be found,” Giselle's lawyers said.
But there is one factor that all the accused undoubtedly have in common: they all made a conscious choice not to go to the police.
Firefighter Jack C, 73, said he thought about it but “then life went on”, while electrician Patrice N, 55, said he “didn't want to waste all day at the police station”.
In the early days of the trial, Giselle Bellico was asked whether she thought it was legitimate to believe her husband had manipulated men.
She shook her head: “They didn't rape me with a gun to their heads. They raped me with a good conscience.”
After thinking, I asked, “Why didn't they go to the police? Even an anonymous phone call could have saved my life.”
“But no one did,” she said after a pause. “Not one of them.”
