A husband who allegedly drugged his wife and invited more than 80 strangers to rape her at their home for almost a decade will go on trial on Monday in a case that has shocked France, reports The Guardian.
Fifty men accused of taking part in the abuse of the woman are also on trial at the court in Avignon.
Police say Dominique P crushed up sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication and mixed it into his wife’s evening meal or in her wine at their home in Mazan, near Carpentras in Provence. The father of three recruited men to rape and sexually abuse her from a online chatroom, where members fantasised about performing sexual acts on non-consenting partners.
The men were instructed to avoid smelling of any kind of fragrance or cigarette smoke to avoid alerting his wife and to leave if she moved so much as an arm, investigators said.
He was arrested on 2 November 2020, after a security guard caught him filming up the skirts of women in the local supermarket. Police found a file labelled “abuses” on a USB drive connected to his computer that contained 20,000 of images and films of his wife being raped almost 100 times.
Since his arrest he “always declared himself guilty”, his lawyer has said, adding that he had said: “I put her to sleep, I offered her, and I filmed.”
Health records reportedly show he obtained 450 sleeping pills in one year alone.