Every night, Gisèle's husband would bring her ice cream in bed. His motivations were beyond sinister.

Gisèle Pelicot's story is not just one of horrifying abuse but of unimaginable courage and resilience.

It's become one of the biggest court cases to capture the world's attention — as lawmakers attempt to prosecute the countless strangers who abused Gisèle at the direction of her now ex-husband, Dominique Pélicot.

For over a decade, her husband of 50 years, Dominique, secretly drugged her and allegedly allowed more than 70 men to assault her while she lay unconscious. Gisèle remained completely unaware of these atrocities until police arrested Dominique on an unrelated offence and uncovered harrowing footage of the attacks.

She chose to sit through replays of the atrocities in court and face both her husband and her abusers, many of whom she is seeing for the first time, turning her personal nightmare into a powerful moment of truth and strength.

Determined to expose the horrors she endured and speak out for all survivors, Gisèle courageously shared a heartbreaking testimony of her experience in court, simultaneously vowing to dismantle the stigma surrounding rape survivors.

A total of 49 men face rape charges, while others are accused of attempted rape, sexual assault, and possession of child abuse imagery.

The defendants, aged 26 to 74, come from various backgrounds, including nurses, journalists, prison officers, soldiers, and farmers. The trial is expected to conclude by December 20.

Here are the most harrowing and brave moments from her powerful testimony.

Image: Getty

"How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?"

Addressing her husband Dominique in the courtroom but refusing to look at him, Gisèle shared her disbelief that the man she loved and trusted for decades could betray her in such a vile and depraved way.

"For me, this betrayal is immeasurable," she told the court.

She expressed confusion and sorrow, repeatedly asking how he could let strangers enter the most intimate space of her life without her consent or knowledge.

"So many times, I said to myself how lucky am I to have you at my side," she said, adding that he helped her when she started to experience the negative symptoms of the drugging and rapes. "He took me to neurologist, to scanners when I was worried. He also went with me to the gynaecologist. For me, he was someone I trusted entirely."

She said, "How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?"

"I always tried to lift you higher, you who plumbed the depths of the human soul, but you made your own choices."

"I am a woman totally destroyed."

In a heart-wrenching moment, Gisèle described the depth of her pain, calling herself "a woman totally destroyed," as she faced the harrowing reality of having been violated by strangers.

The men who raped her were not faceless criminals but people she would have walked past in her daily life. This betrayal shattered her sense of safety in her community.

"The profile of a rapist is not someone met in a car park late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends," she declared.

"When I saw one of the accused on the stand last week who came into my bedroom and house without consent. This man, who came to rape an unconscious, 57-year-old woman – I am also a mother and grandmother ... I could have been his grandmother."

She added, "I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and don't know how I can pick myself up from this.

"I'm 72 soon, and I'm not sure my life will be long enough to recover from this."

Image: Getty.

"He wasn't a brute. He never hit me."

Gisèle told the court of Dominique's reaction to finding out she once had an extramarital affair.

"I was in the bathroom," Gisèle recalled. "He had doubts. He saw I wasn't the same person. He said, 'I need to know', and I admitted it. For him, it was very hard. He couldn't imagine for a moment I could do that."

She was asked about her daughter, Caroline, who told police: "One night I saw my father take my mother by her neck, lift her off the ground and say he'd kill her."

The lawyer then asked if the incident was concerning Dominique's discovering Gisèle had admitted to having an affair.

Gisèle replied, "She was a little girl aged eight, she is not lying, but she saw a scene in the bathroom when her father came towards me. He shook me by the collar, that's right.

"I lived with him for 50 years ... I wouldn't have stayed 50 years if he had behaved like a violent brute. Like all couples, we had arguments. We got through lots of challenges, illness, work, money. He wasn't a brute. He never hit me ... This case for me is total incomprehension."

She added, "I would never have imagined a man could do this."

"I often felt responsible."

Gisèle reflected on the emotional toll of her past affair and how she felt it could have a potential connection to her husband's abuse.

"I have often thought that maybe he never recovered from the fact that I had met someone in my life," she said.

"I often felt responsible. I thought: was it not maybe revenge, because he had so suffered from that affair?"

She continued, "But it was years later, we had talked about that. He had affairs as well. The first man I knew was my husband, the second was my lover. We had talked about that as well."

"I always tried to find a balance, where things were good for us".

Gisèle told the court how her husband's upbringing sharply contrasted with her own.

While she grew up surrounded by love from her grandmother and aunt, Dominique faced a childhood under a tyrannical father, handing over all his earnings to his parents. She also found out during the marriage that he had been sexually assaulted when he was young.

"When I met Dominique, despite losing my mother very young, I had always been surrounded by love, [from] my grandmother, my aunt. I had always been in that atmosphere," she explained, adding, "Dominique was the opposite, he had a tyrannical father, he gave all his salary to his parents. The difference was that — he had lots of anger, reproach."

She described trying to compensate for his difficult past, offering him the support and love he lacked, saying, "I always tried to find a balance, where things were good for us".

Speaking of Dominque's mother, she said, "I saw how that woman, who I liked a lot, was not happy with her husband, who was tyrannical and authoritarian. We couldn't talk about anything. At the table, he had to be served like a prince."

"I would have been a lot more vigilant."

In 2020, Dominique was arrested for filming up women's skirts in a supermarket. It was the subsequent investigation that uncovered the crimes against his wife.

In her testimony, Gisèle Pelicot revealed that she initially thought the 2020 arrest was his first offence.

She believed she could forgive him if he apologised to the women.

However, during the investigation, she discovered that he had been caught for the same crime in 2010. She wishes she'd known back then.

"I lost ten years of my life," she said. "If I had been alerted in 2010, I would have been a lot more vigilant about my mental lapses."

"He brought my ice cream to my bed."

Gisèle recalled how her husband would prepare meals and bring her favourite treats to bed for her, like raspberry ice cream. While she thought that he was being generous, it was actually the sinister vehicle by which he would drug her.

"He made a lot of meals. I saw that as him being attentive. I know that one night he came to collect me at Avignon station after 10 days with my grandchildren. He had already prepared the meal – mashed potato. Two plates were already in the oven. I put olive oil on my potatoes and he put butter, so it was easy to see which plate was his."

She said, "We would have a glass of white wine together. I never found anything strange about my potatoes. We finished eating. Often when it's a football match on TV, I'd let him watch it alone. He brought my ice cream to my bed, where I was, my favourite flavour, raspberry.

"And I thought, how lucky I am, he's a love."

She added, "I know in the morning I take my breakfast in the kitchen, it's basic, orange juice, toast, jam, honey. He could have put it in my orange juice or my coffee. But I didn't feel that moment where I went under [as sedated]."

What appeared to be acts of care were in fact part of his horrific plan to render her unconscious.

"I never felt my heart flutter, I didn't feel anything, I must have gone under very quickly. I would wake up with my pyjamas on. The mornings, I must have been more tired than usual, but I walk a lot and thought it was that."

"I consulted three gynecologists."

Gisèle was unwell for a time before her husband's awful crimes were revealed to her.

During the testimony, she recounted how her husband went with her to doctors and specialists to investigate. She shared, "I consulted three gynecologists," due to strange symptoms like exhaustion and hair loss.

Her concern over her unexplained symptoms led her to consult several doctors, unknowingly seeking answers to the physical effects of the drugging.

"Several times I had woken up and felt like I had lost my waters — as happens when you give birth," she said.

"The underwear in the videos is not my underwear."

One of the more chilling moments was when Gisèle was shown footage of her unconscious body being assaulted.

Asked about the clothing seen in Dominique's videos of her assaults, Gisèle was shocked to realise that the underwear worn in the footage wasn't hers, as Dominique had dressed and undressed her while she was unconscious.

"I had two drawers of my underwear, I knew my underwear well," she explained.

"I wore white or orange colours, I had stockings in white, I had black tights. The underwear in the videos is not my underwear. What I saw on the videos, it doesn't belong to me, he must have kept it somewhere but I didn't know."

"The shame is not ours."

Gisèle, who has insisted that the trial take place in public so the full facts of the case can emerge, used her testimony to deliver an empowering message to other survivors of sexual assault.

"I wanted all woman victims of rape — not just when they have been drugged, rape exists at all levels — I want those women to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too. When you're raped there is shame, and it's not for us to have shame — it's for them," she told the court.

"Of course, today I feel responsible for nothing. Today, above all, I'm a victim."

She added, "It's true that I hear lots of women, and men, who say you're very brave. I say it's not bravery, it's will and determination to change society.

"We have to progress on rape culture in society… For me they are rapists, they remain rapists. Rape is rape."

With her powerful statement to other survivors, Gisèle made it clear: the burden of shame should never fall on the victim.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Mamamia is a charity partner of RizeUp Australia, a national organisation that helps women, children and families move on after the devastation of domestic and family violence. Their mission is to deliver life-changing and practical support to these families when they need it most. If you would like to support their mission you can donate here.

Feature Image: Getty.