For years, her husband was adding sedatives to her evening cup of tea. Now, with fellow survivor Amanda Stanhope, she is lifting the lid on a hidden and diabolical crime
In September 2024, Amanda Stanhope watched, transfixed, from her home in Manchester, as the Gisèle Pelicot case made headlines around the world.
“Gisèle’s case was the first time I knew of somebody else who had been raped while they were drugged,” says Stanhope. “I remember feeling: ‘Thank God I’m not alone. There’s one other person in the world that this has happened to.’” Stanhope’s former partner, David Rogerson, was under investigation at the time for raping her while she slept, and filming the abuse. Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, would end up being convicted for drug-facilitated rape and sexual assault (DFSA), along with 50 strangers he had recruited online to abuse his wife.
In Exmouth, Devon, Zoe Watts was also following the Pelicot case. Her ex-husband, the father of her four children, was already serving an 11-year sentence for drugging and raping Watts over a number of years. “I’d never heard of it before and I absolutely did feel as if it was only me,” she says. “Gisèle was like fresh air. You know that feeling when you come into a house and open up all the doors and windows and let the air and the light come through? Well, drug-facilitated rape is one of those doors she opened.”
