Some ex-girlfriends of accused men tell court of the burden of not knowing if they had been drugged

Giving evidence in Avignon’s criminal court, a softly spoken woman in her 30s pondered the question if the medication she took as part of managing her multiple sclerosis might have allowed her ex-partner, Cédric G, to sexually abuse her without her knowledge. She described their relationship as “lies, from start to finish”.

Cédric G, 50, a software technician who used to run a record shop in Avignon, looked on from behind the glass-screened dock in the court. He is one of 51 men on trial over the rape of Gisèle Pelicot, whose then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.