Throughout the rape trial of Gisele Pelicot's husband, Dominique Pelicot, and the dozens of other men of sexually assaulting her while she was drugged unconscious, the world has seen the Frenchwoman go through a series of stages—from "serene grandmother, to anguished and shame-haunted rape victim, to fearful courtroom witness, to global icon of courage and defiance," per Andrew Harding. In his latest op-ed for the BBC, Harding notes that this final stage was reached when, "a few weeks into the trial ... Gisele Pelicot decided it was time to remove her sunglasses." Her attorney, Stephane Babonneau, explains that the eyewear was "used to hide her eyes" and "to protect her intimacy"—but "there was a point when she felt she no longer needed to protect herself."
"She didn't need [the glasses]" anymore, Babonneau says, speaking to Harding about how his 72-year-old client has "slowly and methodically sought to rebuild her life and, to a limited extent, her peace of mind." The lawyer says Gisele Pelicot's strength was evident from the start, when he and his team were scouring through photo and video evidence of the alleged assaults, along with Pelicot. Babonneau notes she never cried. With the help of experts, she had been able "to put an impressive distance between what she was seeing and her mental health," Harding writes. As for her husband, the attorney now says: "There were two men in Dominique Pelicot, and she only knew one of them." (More here.)
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