Watch: Gisèle Pelicot speaks out after 51 defendants including ex-husband found guilty
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Your support makes all the difference.Watch as Gisèle Pelicot delivered a statement following the verdicts in France's mass rape trial on Thursday, 19 December.
A panel of five judges gave out verdicts for more than four dozen men charged with aggravated rape and sexual assault on Ms Pelicot.
France’s most shocking mass rape case saw 51 men convicted for a total of 428 years.
Dominique Pelicot, the now ex-husband of the 72-year-old grandmother, has been jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of orchestrating Gisèle’s horrific rape in a crime that shocked the country.
He admitted that for years, he drugged his former wife of 50 years out so he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the assaults.
Dominique, also 72, and 50 other men were tried in Avignon for aggravated rape and attempted rape and faced up to 20 years imprisonment if convicted.
Many of the men on trial have claimed they were unaware they were raping Ms Pelicot, denied intending to harm her, or shifted all responsibility onto her then-husband, accusing him of manipulation.
Prosecutor Laure Chabaud demanded the maximum sentence for aggravated rape, stating: “The maximum sentence is 20 years, which is a lot ... but at the same time ... too little in view of the seriousness of the acts that were committed and repeated”.