A 71-year-old French man acknowledged in court that he drugged his then-wife and invited dozens of men to rape her over nearly a decade, as well as raping her himself.

He pleaded with her, and their three children, for forgiveness as he gave evidence in the courtroom in Avignon.

“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,″ Dominique Pelicot told the court.

“They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”

Pelicot’s testimony is the most important moment so far in a trial that has shocked and gripped the country and raised new awareness about sexual violence.

While he previously confessed to investigators, the evidence he gives in court will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial alongside him.

Many deny having raped Gisele Pelicot, saying they were manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.

Ms Pelicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public, and appearing openly in front of the media. She is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband’s testimony on Tuesday.

Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Pelicot is brought to the court through a special entrance that is inaccessible to the media because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial.

Defendants who are not in custody come to the trial wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.

Gisele Pelicot speaks to media as she leaves the Avignon court house
Gisele Pelicot speaks to media as she leaves the Avignon court (Lewis Joly/AP)

After days of uncertainty due to his medical state, Pelicot appeared in court on Tuesday and told judges that he acknowledged all of the charges against him.

Seated in a wheelchair, he spoke to the court for an hour, from his early life to years of abuse against his now ex-wife.

Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.

“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pelicot told judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in a hospital when he was nine years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.

Pelicot also spoke of the trauma endured when his parents took in a young girl in the family, and witnessed his father’s inappropriate behaviour toward her.

“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”

At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me”.

“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.

Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pelicot said she did not deserve what he did.

“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.

At that moment, Ms Pelicot, standing across the room, facing him across a group of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sunglasses back on.

Later, Pelicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”

In 2020, a security agent caught Pelicot filming videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched his house and electronic devices and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Ms eélicot while she appeared to lie unconscious on their bed.

With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.

Ms Pelicot and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.

When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy”, according to legal documents.

She later left her husband and they are now divorced.

He faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

Besides Pelicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.

Pelicot’s much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.