Here’s Why We Should Forever Remember Gisèle Pélicot’s Name
And, as an ex-detective, I implore you to forget the names of her 51+ male abusers
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I can still remember the names of all the men I investigated, arrested and charged for sexually violent offences against women.
And the names of all the men, who were convicted of heinous crimes, whom I visited as part of my role managing registered sex offenders.
In my old job as a detective in the Scottish police, I shared the same air as some of the most despicable men in my country. I looked into hundreds of pairs of soulless eyes and saw a portal to hell.
Sure, the nature of my role meant my focus was always on the perpetrators. But I’m ashamed to say that while the men’s names and the details of what they did to the women survivors are tattooed on my mind, I can not recall most of the women’s names.
I’m fairly desensitised to the abhorrent things that some people do to others. Not much shocks me. But the case of Gisèle Pélicot left me speechless.
I’m sure you’ve heard about it, but if not, as per this Guardian article, Gisèle Pélicot is a French lady whose now ex-husband was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2024 for regularly drugging and raping Gisèle over ten years. As if that wasn’t bad enough in itself, he incited 80 other men to rape her while she lay unconscious, over this 10-year time frame.
Fifty of these 80 men also stood trial, and between them they were found guilty of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.
There are two striking things about this case: the sheer magnitude of the degeneracy and the astounding bravery and courage shown by Gisèle Pélicot, who waived her right to privacy to make the trial public.
By now, Gisèle Pélicot’s name and photo are plastered in every news outlet around the world.
I’ve seen a flurry of commenters urging that the ex-husband’s photo be shown instead of hers, and I’m shaking my head and screaming, “No.”
I don’t want to see his photo, nor will I ever say or write his name. He will remain him, or he, in this article.
We owe it to Gisèle Pélicot and all the women gone before her and, devastatingly, all the women still to come to say their names.
Make no mistake, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be aware of who the perpetrators are. Absolutely, we need access to these names. A full list can be found here. What I’m saying is let us not utter them. Let us only have Gisèle Pélicot’s name on our tongue.
Gisèle Pélicot’s living hell is his merry dance
As a young and impressionable police officer, I was taught to be observant at crime scenes. Perpetrators often return to the scene of their crimes to watch the circus of the emergency services at work, trying to bring order out of their chaos.
This interesting guidance for analysing and profiling the scenes of a crime says:
Such an offender will often return to the scene of the crime for the purpose of reliving the sensations he felt there.
He video-recorded her.
He filmed himself and 80 others violating her. These video recordings allowed him to return to the scene of a harrowing number of crimes for his own perverted indulgence.
But perhaps the behaviour I find even more disturbing is his lack of remorse.
How do I know he lacks remorse? Now I appreciate the court system in France is different to what I am used to in Scotland, but the fact that he took this to trial, to me, shows his lack of remorse. In my experience, cases like this, with such overwhelming evidence, rarely get taken to trial. Instead, a plea bargain is made whereby the perpetrator receives a more lenient sentence in exchange for the survivor not being dragged to court and re-traumatised.
But in this case, he has nothing to gain by accepting a plea bargain. Even a shorter sentence would have him in prison for the rest of his life.
I believe he weaponised the trial to intentionally re-traumatise Gisèle. He wanted to humiliate her, break her spirit, and see her crumble. He enjoyed being the star of this show. He thinks it was his show.
I refuse to allow this to be his show.
Let’s not indulge him in his own perceived glorification. Instead of this being a story of what he did to Gisèle Pélicot I urge everyone to interpret this as a hero’s journey.
By waiving her right to privacy, Gisèle Pélicot owned the narrative. Let’s honour her.
She refused to allow him and all the other men to hide. She controls the story. She stands, a beacon of admirable fortitude. She is a castle. She is the storm.
This is the story of Gisèle Pélicot, who journeys to hell and back and rises up to conquer the devil hiding in plain sight.
Gisèle Pélicot is our hero.
Sure, I’m speculating about his motives for taking the case to trial. And perhaps he had no choice. But one thing is for sure, he doesn’t comprehend the magnitude of his crimes.
Of all the men I interviewed or spoke with who had committed unthinkable crimes, none of them owned their actions or showed genuine remorse for their violence and violations.
Instead, they blamed their survivors and victims. Or they point-blankly denied their involvement despite incriminating evidence, and many of them minimised the severity of their crimes.
No remorse.
Only anger that they had been caught. Frustration that their actions carried consequences. And absolutely no iota of shame, sorrow, or regret.
Some perpetrators revel in their notoriety
Think about some of the world’s most infamous offenders.
Depending on where you are in the world, you may have different names on the tip of your tongue. The first few names that come to my mind are Harold Shipman and Peter Sutcliffe. But I can’t name any of their victims. Can you?
Evil people get a kick out of notoriety. I am not a psychologist; I am in no position to diagnose him as a psychopath, but given his actions, I’d say we can all assume he is one, or at least has traits of one.
According to this article psychopaths crave power and attention.
Our hero, Gisèle Pélicot, destabilised him by waiving her right to anonymity. She claimed back her power and denied him the attention he so desired.
In the harrowing book Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb, we are taken on a detailed journey of how rape and sexual violence are used across the world as weapons of mass destruction.
In this Guardian review, Lamb describes rape as “the cheapest weapon known to man.” It goes on to say
This is a powerful book that not only underlines how women have been written out of history, but how victims of rape have had their suffering enabled, ignored and perpetuated.
And this is exactly what happens.
Time and again, women are written out of the story, buried in shame, while our attention is placed on the men.
Call it intrigue, a dark fascination, a deep incomprehension that we feel compelled to untangle. We spend our time rubbernecking at the perpetrators, further indulging their egos and inflaming their notoriety.
But in all the time and energy we spend focusing on the perpetrators of such abominations, we allow the victims and survivors to slip through our minds like ghosts. Shamefully, we forget them.
To all the survivors and victims whose names I have forgotten, I’m sorry.
Let’s stand with Gisèle Pélicot. Let us raise her onto the shoulders of the world. Let us award her the Victorian Cross for bravery and roll her name over on our tongues until we never forget her fortitude in the face of evil.
And as for him, spare him no more thought. He can slip into oblivion and rot in his prison cell. The same goes for the other perpetrators.
When women own the dialogue, we claim the power and control the narrative. Oh, how I long for a world where this power dance is unnecessary. But until then, let’s talk about what it takes to have the courage of our hero Gisèle Pélicot.
I can’t even tell you his name or the names of the others; I skipped over them. But I will always remember hers.
Gisèle Pélicot, say it with me.
Thanks for reading
Gisèle is the storm, the earthquake, the hurricane. The lighthouse showing the way, illuminating the darkest corners. I stand with her and her courage. She is our sister