Gisele Pelicot defendants described

Will they get harsher sentences in France for pleading not guilty initially, does anyone know?

He was an anaesthetist nurse. I wondered if Mr Pelicot had somebody like that obtaining the medicines for him.

Yes and their whiny little anecdotes about sad childhoods. Cry me a fucking river

It wasn't me.
I only needed her husbands consent
I thought she was pretending
I thought it was a game
I went into a trance and remember nothing

What a bunch of pathetic creatures they are.

I noticed that one. Made me feel a little nauseous. I hope he was never left alone with a patient.

One of her attackers was an anaesthetist, incidentally

Has it been reported how Dominique Pelicot was acquiring all these tranquillisers?

Sickening. I just about managed to get to the end. How repulsive to publish these repellent men's whining excuses. Legally, doubtless they'll all be told to use anything they can think of/make up/augment to plead for leniency. This doesn't mean those should be published, it's repulsive. Especially the one claiming he'd have picked someone else if he'd wanted to rape. I'm speechless.

ALL of them went to a chatroom entitled "without her knowledge". That makes them repulsive pieces of shit already. I'm damn sure nowhere on that website does it have a disclaimer along the lines of "this is only a game, be sure to get consent". Course it fucking didn't, because it's a forum for rapists.

Gisele is so brave but what a hideous picture this case paints of the revoltingness of an outwardly "normal" cross section of men. Terrifying. I wonder whether any of these men will have a hard time understanding consent when it comes to their own bodies in prison.

Also, many are likely lying. Usually when people talk about childhood abuse, unqualified unjudgmental belief should be the first assumption because very very few people (within the general population) would lie about that and because being believed is often so important. The proportion of men convicted of horrific crimes who would lie about it however is much higher both because:

1. They desperately need an excuse/mitigating factor to make what they did seem less horrific. A history of childhood abuse that you conveniently never mentioned before to anyone** is hard to disprove.
2. Some paedophiles/sex offenders fantasise about this stuff. and put themselves in the position of an abused child because child abuse sexually excites him. This is also why many of these people are so quick to accuse real victims of lying. Because that's what they do.

** I would never say this about anyone else. There are lots of reasons for people not to talk about this stuff until decades later. But prison-onset memories of child trauma are just an older version of prison-onset gender dysphoria.

Their sexual gratification was more important than a woman’s consent. I suspect that knowing it was without consent heightened their experience.
Utter scum who should be kicked in the bin never to emerge.

I hate to say it but there is no guarantee that women would be stricter than men in this regard. There are women sitting on juries who will decide that the violent male rapist can't really by guilty because he seems so nice and polite and well dressed. There are the women who are sticking by their husbands in this case. In some ways women have more to lose psychologically by confronting how awful (some) men are. Men on the other hand know what men are like. That doesn't mean women shouldn't judge rape cases, just that they aren't automatically better at it than men. I read somewhere that the harshest sentences are handed down by male judges with daughter but I can't find that now so take it with a pinch of salt. Besides which it might not be practical to make "has a daughter" a prerequisite of judging a rape trial. Much better to put time and energy into countering rape myths and assumptions held by judges and juries regardless of sex.

It’s utterly incredible but in a bad way.

It’s amazing how many have the gall to pretend they don’t understand consent.

I imagine that if they suddenly were the one on the receiving end of being assaulted by another man they would understand it very well indeed.

You did well to get to the end @VictorianBigot I couldn’t get past the first sob story.

What you wrote in your first paragraph about “someone pretty” made me feel sick. This rapist has learned nothing, has he, from his time in the legal process since being charged and investigated. I honestly feel quite despairing.

I managed to make it to the end. The one towards the bottom who said if he wanted to rape someone he’d have chosen someone pretty, what a disgrace.

It’s shocking how many of them were suddenly banging on about the importance of consent, one even going so far as to say he would set up some sort of awareness group WTF. They don’t give a fuck and they know they don’t give a fuck. If they did they wouldn’t have been on websites like without her knowledge or whatever the disgusting stain on humanity is called.

Gisèle Pelicot was incredibly brave to waive her right to anonymity, it actually made me cry. I cannot imagine how painful this trial is for her. It’s heartening to see the crowds and marches in support of her.

I noticed that they didn't use their surnames. Isn't one of the reasons we don't have anonymity in the UK is so other victims can come forward

Agreed

I think it’s a further insult and violation to Gisele that they had the fucking audacity to plead “innocent”

Excellent point. Thank you.

JFC

I couldn’t get far through that list it’s chilling. I’ll go back later I think it’s important to read

Without her knowledge was the name of the chat room that these rapists chose to enter and participate in.

The Guardian can fuck off with these rapists’ sob stories. I don’t care what has happened to them in their lives because Gisele should be kept central here, not those pathetic turds. All I can say is that I wish them all a very uncomfortable, lengthy sejour in the nick.

Yes @GillBeck thank you for pointing out the difference between the court process and their excuses being reported. That’s what is not needed.