Dusta heads up.

Today's episode discusses sexual abuse and distressing themes already.

And this is the Daily ar.

This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.

Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS.

It's Monday, the thirteenth of January.

I'm Emma, i'm zara.

Last year, the story of a French rape case and the woman at its center, Gazelle Pelico, captured global attention.

Her ex husband, Dominique Pelico, pleaded guilty to charges relating to drugging, raping, and inviting others to rape Gazelle over the course of a decade.

After months of hearings and a trial that included dozens of other men, Dominique Pelico was sentenced to twenty years in jail.

In December, fifty others were found guilty of varying charges, including rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault.

Now this story is back in the headlines after the founder of a website that Jellico used to recruit other men to rape his wife while sedated was charged by French police.

And this is a story that I think has stuck with so many people.

It was so traumatizing, so distressing to learn about.

But there have been quite a few updates since we last spoke about it on the pod.

Can you just remind us of the key aspects of this story before we go on to what's making headlines currently.

Yeah, and to understand the context of what's currently happening on this website and its role in the trial, we need to take it back to the start anyway, So you might remember in September last year, the world became captivated by this harrowing story, a story of a seventy two year old French woman, Gazelle Pellico.

Now, when she was twenty one, Gazelle married a man called Dominique.

They went on to have three children together several grandchildren, and they lived in a small village called Mazan in the south of France.

In November twenty twenty, police there began investigating Dominique Pelico after he was caught filming up women's skirts at a local supermarket.

It was this investigation that led police to a search of his computer, and that's where they found a folder labeled Abuses, which contained over twenty thousand images of one unconscious woman being raped by several different men.

And that woman was, of course, Gazelle, who had been his wife for decades.

As you said, exactly what happened from here.

The police weren't even looking for this, they were there for another reason.

What happened after they uncovered this file.

So yeah, as you mentioned, it was kind of an inadvertent discovery, and Gazelle attributes that computer search to basically saving her life.

She had no memory of the rapes, she didn't recognize the men in the images shown to her, but that investigation led to her then husband, Dominique, being charged with several offenses, including aggravated rape, drugging, violating the privacy of his wife, all of which he pled guilty too.

And after reviewing that footage sees from his computer, police made a list of eighty three suspects.

They identified and charged fifty, all men who assaulted Gazelle aged between twenty six and seventy four.

So there are two I think deeply sinister parts to this story.

The first, of course, is that the ex husband of Gazelle admitted to drugging and then raping his then wife.

But the other part is, as you just said, that there were men of all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of occupations, all different ages who were also involved in this case.

All of this was orchestrated by Dominique.

What do we know about how he was able to do that, How he was able to connect all of these different men in this one way.

Yeah, so Dominique met most of these men via an online chat forum and this is really integral to the story that he is in the news now this month that we'll talk about the chat four um called Coco that was actually banned about six months ago.

But it's a notorious website that had been used to coordinate sex crimes and other serious offenses.

Right across Europe.

So that's where Dominique would connect with these men in a chat room, and he told the court basically he would arrange these meetups, put sleeping pills into his wife's dinner to sedate her before raping her, or inviting other men who he met online on that website Coco, to come to the couple's home and rape Gazelle.

I want to talk more about that website in a bit, But the last update of twenty twenty four was that Dominique was sentenced.

Can you just quickly provide an update on that.

So all men on trial, including Dominique were found guilty.

He received the maximum sentence of twenty years.

The other men were sentenced to prison terms of between five and fifteen years.

There was also a man involved in the case.

His name was Jean Pierre Mareschal, who said he met and was inspired by Dominique online through that website Coco, and he was found guilty of drugging and raping his own wife.

At the same trial, that man was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

Dominique was also found guilty of the attempted rape of that man's wife.

Speaking outside court after the sentencing, Gazelle said, I would like to express my profound gratitude towards everyone who has supported me.

When I opened the doors to this trial, I wanted all of society to be a witness to the debates that took place here.

I have never regretted that decision, which speaks to this really interesting aspect of the story, which is about the fact that we might not have ever heard about it if it wasn't for Jazelle Pelico specifically choosing to open up these proceedings.

Under French law, actually complainants have a right to remain private during a trial, but she insisted on this complete publicity, and that's all about her support and advocacy for victim survivors.

I think she's really become the face of that advocacy in France, and we've heard a sentiment on going from her ever since about you know, putting her story into the world in the hopes that it will help others.

I think that we could do a whole podcast on the strength of Gazelle and the difference that she has made to so many people's lives.

Despite the utter devastation that she herself has faced, she has somehow found a way to inspire so many around the world, not just in France.

I want to turn back to something that you mentioned earlier, which was that these men were all on the same website, and this website was able to exist until just six months ago.

What do we know about Coco that website.

Yes, so this chat room was used in recruiting the men, as you mentioned, who committed these assaults against Gizelle Pellico, but it was shut down in June last year, and that followed an eighteen month long international investigation led by French police of Coco, not in relation to the Pelico case, but just broadly in relation to the notorious activity that it had been rumored was going on on that website.

So, according to a statement from the Paris Public Prosecutor's office, investigators actually found evidence connecting the chat room to more than twenty thousand cases, relating to nearly five hundred alleged victims.

So these findings related to offenses including child sexual abuse, murder, rape, drug trafficking, all alleged to have taken place between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty four in France.

So following that investigation, authorities demanded the site be closed.

That's why it was shut down before the Pelico trial began in September.

And now its founder, a man called Isaac Steel, has been charged in relation to the platform.

And who is this man Isaac Steel?

So he's a forty four year old Italian national.

He actually grew up in the south of France but has been living in Bulgaria.

His home was searched in Bulgaria at the request of French officials during that eighteen month long investigation into Coco, but he wasn't arrested concerning those inquiries and hill last week so on Thursday he was taken into custody in France and charged with several offenses relating to organized crime, drug trafficking, child sexual abuse and administering an online platform to facilitate illegal transactions.

Now he has since been released from police custody.

He was granted bail for one hundred thousand euros that's about one hundred and sixty six thousand Aussie dollars, so he's no longer in attention, but he has been banned from leaving France as these inquiries continue.

He's expected to plead not guilty to the charges, though, and that's after his lawyer spoke to French media saying that Steve Or firmly denies the accusations made against him and plans to cooperate fully to prove his innocence.

So now we kind of await a formal plea to be entered and this could very well become the next chapter of this story, or you know, the next French trial that will capture the world's attention.

What I find fascinating is that, you know, actual violence is not a new thing, and it's pervasive.

It doesn't discriminate geographically, no matter what and at every time and place.

But what's so interesting is now there's this new frontier and the way that technology can potentially enable this sort of behavior, and how authorities will be able to keep up the fact that this website was only closed down six months ago, I think shows the way in which we still have to transform and develop in order to keep up with these changes.

Yeah.

Absolutely, and especially in a place like France, a country that had been previously criticized for being slow to the uptake of the Me Too movement.

It's been criticized for its sexual violence laws.

There's certainly a sense on social media that there's all of this momentum for change, even at a government level.

You know, the French government has launched this awareness campaign about helping victim survivors and potential victims understand the signs of being drugged.

There's been discussions about expanding the lead definition of rape in France, which currently lacks clarity around consent, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron has expressed his support for changing that.

And so, you know, all of this combined kind of marks this significant step towards addressing sexual violence in a country where you could argue, you know, it hasn't been something that has been spoken about freely and publicly in such a way.

There are always moments that can ignite a national or indeed a global discussion.

But whether or not this case and the strength of Giselle Pellico is able to create meaningful change, I think is something that will all be waiting to see and keeping a keen eye on.

As m you mentioned at the top, this is a highly distressing case and a highly distressing topic.

So if today's episode did raise any concerns for you, you can contact one eight hundred Respect on one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two.

You can also head to one eight hundred.

Respect dot org dot au for resources and support.

Take care of yourself and we'll be back again this afternoon.

My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkadoon woman from Gadighl Country.

The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.

We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present,