“My mother is a hero,” says the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot following the conviction of Father Dominique’s rape

As Caroline Darian tells her, she started with a phone call from her mother on the evening of November 2, 2020.

Gisèle told her daughter that she had to sit down.

“I just want to be sure you are not alone and you are with your husband,” Caroline told Oprah Winfrey Podcastul Oprah About what her mother said Gisèle Pelicot. “And, she told me, I just discovered this morning at the police station, where I stayed almost five hours that your father used to drug me before being raped and I was raped by a dozen and dozens of foreigners, unknown people.”

“That everything changed in a second,” she continued. And I realized that my life will never be the same. ”

In December 2024, Caroline’s father, Dominique Pelicot, was sentenced to 20 years because he trained his 50 -year -old wife and then registered a recording on more than 50 men who raped for almost a decade from 2011 to 2020.

Fifty other men were sentenced to crimes, including aggravated rape, sexual assault and children’s abuse and received sentences between three and fifteen years.

Dominique was also found guilty of taking indecent images of Caroline and his son -in -law, Aurore and Celine.

Gisèle, 72 years old, gave up her right to anonymous during the trial, saying she wants “shame to change the parties” for victims of abuses worldwide.

“My mother is a hero,” said Caroline, the author of memory I will never call him a father again. “We just have to be grateful for what he has done. She entered this day on this day to face all these men, including Dominique. ”

The case came to light in December 2020, when two women presented themselves after Dominique was caught filming and skirts. Gisèle was asked to descend to the police station, where she told the police that they had discovered thousands of photos and videos with her unconscious, taken by her husband, who documented the attacks after recruiting neighbors and foreigners on the Internet.

“Some of the (men) went several times,” says Caroline. “Some of them went once. But the mother has been raped more than 200 times over ten years of more than 70 different men. ”

Its alleged attackers included firefighters, masons, gardeners, prisons, soldiers and journalists, between the ages of 26 and 73.

“They were dads, grandparents,” she said.

One of the men was HIV positive.

“It came seven times,” Caroline told Winfrey. “(Dominque) has actually had a formula that he will tell the other men, because he also taught them how to drug his wives.”

During the trial, Dominique acknowledged abuse and regularly crushing drugs in his wife’s food – including in her favorite dessert, raspberry ice cream telegraph.

The day after her mother was brought to the police station, the police asked Caroline to come where she showed her two semi-debate photos found on her laptop.

“I have no memory of the place where those pictures were taken,” she said. “I live like a tsunami because I realized that my mother was not the only victim of this family.”

The arrival of what happened was agonizing.

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“I thought I had a solid, cheerful, protective and soothing father,” she said. “I thought they were happy together.”

“I think there are two faces in Dominique Pelicot,” she continued. “A face that is a good guy, a good neighbor, a good husband, a good parent. And another, who is a true manipulator … I thought he was a good father.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Telephone of Family Violence at 1-800-799-7233 or go to thehotline.org. All calls are free and confidential. The telephone line is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.