WARNING: This story contains details of sexual abuse
Gisèle Pelicot knew the father of six who lived a short distance away from her home.
She would sometimes say hello to him at the local bakery.
He was a builder and once he came over to chat to her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, about cycling.
What she didn't know was that wouldn't be the only time he visited her home.
Simone M. is just one of more than 60 men who was recruited online by Dominique Pelicot to rape his then-wife while she lay drugged and almost comatose on their bed.
Fifty of these men have now been sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison on various charges including rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.
Eleven other men who allegedly assaulted Gisèle Pelicot remain unidentified.
Simone M., 43, was sentenced to nine years in prison for his crimes.
Under French law, those found guilty are entitled to anonymity until after the 10-day appeal window has passed.
For almost a decade, Dominique Pelicot got away with his heinous crimes. Gisèle was oblivious.
Years later, when Gisèle Pelicot steeled herself to watch some of the 20,000 horrific videos and photographs documenting her own abuse collected by Dominique Pelicot, Simone M. would be the only man the grandmother recognised.
Most of the others lived within 50 kilometres of her home in the French town of Mazan.
Her husband had orchestrated it all.
'Remember what I said'
Dominique Pelicot has been labelled one of the worst sexual offenders in France's recent history.
He received the maximum sentence of 20 years for drugging and raping his then-wife, and inviting others to sexually assault her.
The case has sent shockwaves across France and the world.
Gisèle Pelicot has become a feminist hero.
Her image and now trademark sunglasses are emblazoned in street art across the country.
Rallies have been held in her honour and the case has prompted tough conversations about attitudes towards women, sexual assault victims who have been drugged and legal reform.
It was never supposed to be this way.
The case against Dominique Pelicot and 50 other offenders was intended to play out behind closed doors.
But Gisèle's extraordinary decision to go public and waive her right to anonymity opened a window into a disturbing world few knew existed, and raised questions about whether these types of crimes could be happening elsewhere.
Speaking after the sentences were handed down in Avignon on Thursday, she said she "never regretted" making the trial public.
"I want any woman who wakes up one morning with no memories of the night before to remember what I said, so that no more women can fall prey," she told the court during the trial.
Abuse that started at dinner
In the evening, Dominique Pelicot would often cook dinner for his wife and bring her ice cream before bed.
"I used to say to him: how lucky am I, you're a darling, you really look after me," Gisèle Pelicot told the court.
But between 2011 and 2020, he crushed sedatives into her food or slipped them into her drink.
While she slept, Dominique would take her pyjamas off, dress her in lingerie and allow men, sometimes more than one per night, to come to their house and assault her, often while she snored, and he filmed.
On her body, he would write degrading comments.
On the chest of drawers visible in some videos, smiling faces in family photos watched on.
No day was off limits. Gisèle was assaulted on her birthday, Valentine's Day and on New Year's Eve.
No place was sacred. She was once assaulted in her daughter's bed in her beach house.
Meticulous measures were taken to avoid Gisèle finding out.
Dominique asked the men not to smell of alcohol, perfume or cigarettes.
After the men left, Dominique would bath her and put her pyjamas back on.
Gisèle would wake up not knowing what horrors had been inflicted on her while she slept.
But there were signs something was very wrong.
One time she looked in the mirror and did not recognise the haircut she had just received.
Another time, she noticed bleach marks on her trousers but had no memory of how they got there. Some days she would sleep for 18 hours, overcome with fatigue.
She became increasingly convinced she had a brain tumour or had developed Alzheimer's, but tests from doctors kept coming back negative.
There were physical signs too.
"I consulted three gynaecologists. Several times I had woken up and felt like I had lost my waters — as happens when you give birth," she told the court.
"The signs were there, but I never knew how to decode them."
Through it all, she was grateful for her supportive husband who would accompany her to appointments and reassure her.
Today, Gisèle is dealing with the trauma of her experiences and the consequences of four sexually-transmitted diseases.
'Everyday men' or monsters?
For more than three months, Gisèle Pelicot went to the court almost every day, sitting in the same room as those who had assaulted her, including her ex-husband.
Often she was supported by her two sons and daughter.
People queued from the early morning to support her, showering her with gifts, applause and shouts of encouragement as she arrived.
Through it all, she was determined that something good would come of her immense pain.
"I wanted all woman victims of rape — not just when they have been drugged — rape exists at all levels," she told the court.
"I want those women to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too. When you're raped there is shame, and it's not for us to have shame, it's for them."
The men who faced the most serious accusations sat in a custom-made glass box to the side of the courtroom for the trial.
Many of the other accused were out on bail, shielding their faces with masks and hoodies from the media outside.
They entered the court side by side with members of the public, and often, the woman they assaulted.
Aged between 26 and 74, the defendants came from all walks of life.
Men who took to the stand included a journalist, a soldier, a nurse, a councillor and a father who gave up part-time work to care for his disabled son.
Many of the men have children and decade-long marriages.
The men were dubbed by French media as 'Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde' or 'Mr Everyman'.
The court psychiatrist testified they were neither ordinary men nor monsters.
But when they saw Gisèle Pelicot's condition, none reported it to the police. Many returned multiple times.
The crimes would have almost certainly continued but in September 2020, a security guard noticed Dominique Pelicot filming up women's skirts with a hidden camera at a local supermarket.
Outraged, he urged the women to report him.
When local police got involved, they acted on a hunch to confiscate his electronic devices.
There they found suspicious messages, prompting them to search his house, where they discovered troves of videos and photos of abuse.
He confessed to everything.
The same cannot be said for the 50 other men.
"My body raped her, but my brain didn't."
That was the explanation given by volunteer firefighter Christian L., who was found guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced to nine years in prison.
A few of the accused admitted to raping Gisèle. Most denied the charges.
Many testified that they are so-called 'libertines', and believed it was all part of the couple's sexual fantasy or game.
Others say they didn't believe it was rape because Dominique had consented for Gisèle.
Many accused Dominique of manipulating them and believed she was pretending to be asleep.
Videos critical to prosecution case
Experts say this case is unusual because of the wealth of evidence detailing the assaults.
Gisèle Pelicot's lawyers successfully pushed for the catalogue of graphic videos of her abuse to be played in the courtroom.
The defendants couldn't deny they were there.
Instead, their lawyers argued they should not be found guilty of rape if they did not expressly intend to rape Gisèle.
Elsa Labouret is a member of the feminist organisation Osez le feminisme.
"It's just insulting to everyone's intelligence. You can't rape without meaning to," she told the ABC.
"What you can do is have a sexual relationship that is completely desired by everyone, and you have to be sure of it. If you don't know, leave. It's just maybe these men are lying to themselves."
In France, consent isn't part of the definition of rape. Instead, the crime is defined as a sexual act "by violence, coercion, threat or surprise."
Following the case, several politicians have backed changing that definition, but not everyone is convinced.
"The problem doesn't really lie in the definition. It's more the interpretation of it and that's not necessarily going to change with the new definition," Ms Labouret said.
Could it be happening elsewhere?
This case has captured the world's attention due to the shocking nature and scale of the crimes, and how seemingly easy it was for Dominique Pelicot to find dozens of men who were willing to take part.
Dr Leigh Harkins is a professor of Forensic Psychology at Ontario Tech University and specialises in sexual violence research.
She was shocked by the case.
"I think it seems like it should be such a unique one-off. But for it to be happening in this small community of normal, everyday men, it would suggest that it could be happening more widely," Dr Harkins said.
Even within this case, there was a trail of abuse.
In 2011, Dominique Pelicot received instructions from a man who had been drugging his own wife with sleeping pills.
Once Dominique had mastered it, he taught another defendant, Jean-Pierre M., to subject his wife to the same abuse.
Jean-Pierre M. invited Dominique to come to their house multiple times to rape her while she was drugged.
He received a sentence of 12 years for aggravated rape and attempted rape of his wife.
Other men in the videos told Dominique they were drugging their partners as well. These men are yet to be identified by authorities.
The ABC spoke to three experts in sexual assault research. None had come across crimes of this type, on this scale before.
Forensic psychologist Professor Jessica Woodhams acknowledged that more research was needed, but the crime itself made that difficult.
"All the research that we conduct, a large amount of it is from the victim's perspective. The victim has to have come forward or we speak to the perpetrators once they've been apprehended," she told the ABC.
"If these people aren't apprehended and their offending goes unnoticed, you don't end up with any information about it because it's not come to the police's attention."
The question of motive
The central questions that lingered over the course of the trial challenge our very idea of safety.
How could a man do this to his wife?
How could a stranger do this to a helpless, drugged woman?
How could anyone keep silent about what was happening in a quaint town?
When the men took to the stand to respond to the charges, many tried to justify their actions by claiming they had grown up in violent households where they were sexually abused as children.
Others had idyllic childhoods.
Adrien L., 34, admitted he developed a hatred towards women after discovering years earlier that he was helping raise a child that wasn't his own.
Jérôme V., visited the Pelicot's Mazan house six times, admitting he knew Gisèle was being drugged from the start and had not consented, and was attracted by the freedom he would have over her motionless body.
Dr Ruth Tully is a consultant forensic psychologist who is an expert in assessment and treatment of sex offenders.
"A common misconception is that all rape is about sex or a sexual interest in forced sex. But it can also be about anger and power and control," Dr Ruth Tully said.
"I think it's easy to fall into an assumption in this case that because all these men did the same thing, their motivation and reasoning is probably all the same. But it will absolutely be different for every single one of them."
As for the man at the centre of the complex operation, Dominique Pelicot, his lawyer told the court he grew up in a violent household and was sexually assaulted when he was nine.
"Trauma doesn't cause sexual offending," Dr Tully said.
"While in my experience it is the case that lots of sexual offenders have experiences of trauma which can influence their decision making, ultimately the responsibility for offending lies with them.
"It's important to remember that violence of any kind, including sexual violence and rape, is a decision. People make a decision to offend."
Gisèle Pelicot's legacy
Gisèle and Dominique's divorce was finalised before the trial started. Legally, she now uses her maiden name.
She said she kept Pelicot for the trial so her grandchildren can be proud of their name, and their grandmother.
Her courageous decision to go public with the trial has already had an impact.
The French government has pledged to roll out state-funded testing kits that could reveal if someone has been given drugs without their knowledge.
"If even just one person reads her account and notices symptoms in themselves that she has described and realises something is happening to them, then that's helped prevent further victimisation," Dr Ruth Tully said.
On Thursday, Gisèle Pelicot walked out of the courtroom in Avignon, flanked by her children and the world's media.
She was free of the burden of the trial that took months, but not yet free of the emotional toll, which she admitted she might never overcome.
Supporters sung in praise of the grandmother who allowed her story to be told to the world.
As she exited the courtroom, they gave an almighty cheer.
"I'm also thinking of the many victims who are not recognised, whose stories often remain in the shadows. I want you to know that we share the same battle," she said after the sentences were handed down.
"I now have confidence in our ability to collectively seize a future in which each woman and man can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding. I thank you."
