Watchdog Finds Missed Opportunity: France's justice watchdog says the decade-long abuse of Gisèle Pelicot may have been prevented if a 1999 DNA match linking her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, had been acted on after a 2010 custody sample. The Meaux public prosecution office either did not receive or failed to process a forensic letter amid reorganisation and lost files. The report highlights systemic failures in mail handling and recordkeeping that risk losing critical forensic evidence.
Lost DNA Match May Have Prevented Decade-Long Abuse of Gisèle Pelicot, Watchdog Finds
Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband could have been convicted 14 years earlier, according to France’s justice watchdog - Christophe Simon/AFP
France's disciplinary watchdog for the justice system has concluded that the decade-long abuse of 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot might have been prevented or curtailed if a DNA lead had been acted on in 2010.
What Happened
Between 2011 and 2020, Ms Pelicot was repeatedly drugged by her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and raped by at least 70 other men at their Provence home. Prosecutors say Pelicot enlisted some of the men via an online chat site known to attract predators.
The Missed DNA Link
In 2010 Dominique Pelicot was detained after being caught filming under the skirts of women in a Paris supermarket; he was released with a €100 fine. A DNA sample taken while he was in custody matched a profile from a violent attempted rape of a woman identified as "Marion" in Villeparisis in 1999.
The DNA sample was taken in 2010 when Dominique Pelicot was caught filming up the skirts of female customers in a Paris supermarket
A report commissioned by Gérald Darmanin, the French minister of justice, found that the letter conveying that DNA match from the forensic police to the Meaux public prosecution office either never arrived or was not processed. The Meaux office was the unit handling the 1999 case.
Systemic Failings Exposed
The watchdog's review highlights broader, long-standing problems in how critical correspondence is handled across parts of the French judicial system: documents sometimes went missing during a period of reorganisation, letters containing vital information were reportedly returned to sender or destroyed unopened, and the lack of robust computer records made tracing lost mail nearly impossible.
Investigators also noted that DNA profiles and other sensitive forensic information are still, in some cases, delivered by regular post—creating an unnecessary risk that essential evidence will be lost.
The report into Dominique Pelicot was ordered by Gérald Darmanin, the French minister of justice - Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters
Legal Consequences And Ongoing Inquiries
Dominique Pelicot was sentenced in December 2024 to 20 years in prison — the maximum penalty for aggravated rape — following France's largest-ever rape trial, which resulted in convictions of 51 men whose combined sentences exceed 400 years. Pelicot is also under investigation for the 1991 rape and murder of Sophie Narme and for the 1999 attempted rape linked to the DNA match.
A Nanterre Cold Cases Unit has been assigned to search for additional potential victims linked to Pelicot.
Florence Rault, lawyer for victims' families in the cold cases, described the watchdog report as "a farce," accusing the state of admitting multiple failures while avoiding individual responsibility.
Watchdog's Caution
The justice watchdog stressed that it cannot conclude "with certainty" that a procedural failure occurred because it remains unclear whether the forensic letter was ever received by the Meaux office. Nonetheless, the report says that had the 1999 DNA match been processed in 2010, Pelicot might have been identified as a serial offender years earlier, potentially preventing or shortening the abuse suffered by Ms Pelicot.
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