- has been sentenced to 20 years in prison It was something in Dominique Pelicot's swagger, his "élan" - as the French might put it - that immediately struck the psychiatrist as odd. There he stood. A 68-year-old pensioner who had already spent several months inside one of France's most notorious prisons, Les Baumettes in Marseilles. The prison was a grim, intimidating place, crowded with members of the port city's warring drug gangs. And yet the man in the visiting room who rose to greet Dr Laurent Layet on a cold day in February 2021 seemed "clean, polished… He had just cut his own hair. He came towards me with this assertive attitude." Dr Layet was surprised, to put it mildly. The psychiatrist was the first of many people to scrutinise Dominique Pelicot. Each expert was looking for clues to explain how this apparently genial pensioner could have committed such grotesque crimes and deceived his unsuspecting victim for so long. In all his years interviewing hundreds of rapists and suspected rapists on behalf of French police and prosecutors, Dr Layet had never come across anyone quite like this grey-haired former electrician, calmly awaiting prosecution for drugging his wife Gisele and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her as she lay, unconscious, in the couple's bedroom. "Something didn't fit. I had never encountered such an exceptional case," Dr Layet remembers thinking at the time. Dominique Pelicot's double life: Who is the man who plotted his wife's mass rape? 8 hours ago Andrew Harding BBC Paris correspondent Share Save BBC A composite image showing a family photo of Dominique Pelicot, a man with grey hair smiling at the camera; then a mugshot or passport photo where he is looking at the camera with a blank expression; and a court sketch of him speaking into a microphone.BBC Dominique Pelicot - captured in photos and a court sketch - has been sentenced to 20 years in prison It was something in Dominique Pelicot's swagger, his "élan" - as the French might put it - that immediately struck the psychiatrist as odd. There he stood. A 68-year-old pensioner who had already spent several months inside one of France's most notorious prisons, Les Baumettes in Marseilles. The prison was a grim, intimidating place, crowded with members of the port city's warring drug gangs. And yet the man in the visiting room who rose to greet Dr Laurent Layet on a cold day in February 2021 seemed "clean, polished… He had just cut his own hair. He came towards me with this assertive attitude." Dr Layet was surprised, to put it mildly. The psychiatrist was the first of many people to scrutinise Dominique Pelicot. Each expert was looking for clues to explain how this apparently genial pensioner could have committed such grotesque crimes and deceived his unsuspecting victim for so long. In all his years interviewing hundreds of rapists and suspected rapists on behalf of French police and prosecutors, Dr Layet had never come across anyone quite like this grey-haired former electrician, calmly awaiting prosecution for drugging his wife Gisele and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her as she lay, unconscious, in the couple's bedroom. "Something didn't fit. I had never encountered such an exceptional case," Dr Layet remembers thinking at the time. Dr Laurent Layet, a man with dark brown hair and stubble, wearing a dark suit and a dark tie on a white shirt, sitting with his hands clasped on his knee in a liveing room, with art on the walls and a lamp in the background. Psychiatrist Laurent Layet was struck by Pelicot's assertive attitude in prison At the end of a gruelling, four-month trial that has enraged people across France and far beyond - even as they were inspired by the dignity and courage of Gisele - Dominique Pelicot's confident demeanour, a grandiose presence in the courtroom in Avignon, remained intact. One might expect a man in Pelicot's position - a globally reviled sexual predator, and rapist, facing the near-certain prospect of dying in prison - to cut a wretched figure. And there have been a handful of brief moments when he wept, openly, in court - usually for himself. But for the most part, he struck an imperious pose, courtroom microphone in one hand, his body slouched in a throne-like chair (to accommodate the accused's health issues), sometimes looking bored, occasionally interjecting like a ringmaster seeking to keep an unruly circus - the 50 other men on trial beside him - in their place. "I am a rapist, like the others in this room. They knew everything," he intoned, speaking with the confidence of a man who assumed his words would put an end to all further discussion. But what are we to make of that domineering performance? And what have we really learned of this jowly, grey-haired figure, with his black cane and scarf, seated in a glass cage; this serial rapist whose cruelty has almost been eclipsed in the public imagination by the dignity and courage shown by his former wife? Dr Layet first encountered Dominique in the late summer of 2020 at a police station in the nearby town of Carpentras, immediately after his arrest for filming with a camera up women's skirts in a local supermarket. Called in to assess Pelicot, Dr Layet noted how breezily he dismissed his crime, like a genteel grandfather caught pocketing a few cigarettes. Dr Layet detected a "dissonance" in the man's behaviour, and the strong implication that he was hiding something more serious. He told the police that this one was worth closer inspection. Dominique Pelicot's double life: Who is the man who plotted his wife's mass rape? 8 hours ago Andrew Harding BBC Paris correspondent Share Save BBC A composite image showing a family photo of Dominique Pelicot, a man with grey hair smiling at the camera; then a mugshot or passport photo where he is looking at the camera with a blank expression; and a court sketch of him speaking into a microphone.BBC Dominique Pelicot - captured in photos and a court sketch - has been sentenced to 20 years in prison It was something in Dominique Pelicot's swagger, his "élan" - as the French might put it - that immediately struck the psychiatrist as odd. There he stood. A 68-year-old pensioner who had already spent several months inside one of France's most notorious prisons, Les Baumettes in Marseilles. The prison was a grim, intimidating place, crowded with members of the port city's warring drug gangs. And yet the man in the visiting room who rose to greet Dr Laurent Layet on a cold day in February 2021 seemed "clean, polished… He had just cut his own hair. He came towards me with this assertive attitude." Dr Layet was surprised, to put it mildly. The psychiatrist was the first of many people to scrutinise Dominique Pelicot. Each expert was looking for clues to explain how this apparently genial pensioner could have committed such grotesque crimes and deceived his unsuspecting victim for so long. In all his years interviewing hundreds of rapists and suspected rapists on behalf of French police and prosecutors, Dr Layet had never come across anyone quite like this grey-haired former electrician, calmly awaiting prosecution for drugging his wife Gisele and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her as she lay, unconscious, in the couple's bedroom. "Something didn't fit. I had never encountered such an exceptional case," Dr Layet remembers thinking at the time. Dr Laurent Layet, a man with dark brown hair and stubble, wearing a dark suit and a dark tie on a white shirt, sitting with his hands clasped on his knee in a liveing room, with art on the walls and a lamp in the background. Psychiatrist Laurent Layet was struck by Pelicot's assertive attitude in prison At the end of a gruelling, four-month trial that has enraged people across France and far beyond - even as they were inspired by the dignity and courage of Gisele - Dominique Pelicot's confident demeanour, a grandiose presence in the courtroom in Avignon, remained intact. One might expect a man in Pelicot's position - a globally reviled sexual predator, and rapist, facing the near-certain prospect of dying in prison - to cut a wretched figure. And there have been a handful of brief moments when he wept, openly, in court - usually for himself. But for the most part, he struck an imperious pose, courtroom microphone in one hand, his body slouched in a throne-like chair (to accommodate the accused's health issues), sometimes looking bored, occasionally interjecting like a ringmaster seeking to keep an unruly circus - the 50 other men on trial beside him - in their place. "I am a rapist, like the others in this room. They knew everything," he intoned, speaking with the confidence of a man who assumed his words would put an end to all further discussion. But what are we to make of that domineering performance? And what have we really learned of this jowly, grey-haired figure, with his black cane and scarf, seated in a glass cage; this serial rapist whose cruelty has almost been eclipsed in the public imagination by the dignity and courage shown by his former wife? Dr Layet first encountered Dominique in the late summer of 2020 at a police station in the nearby town of Carpentras, immediately after his arrest for filming with a camera up women's skirts in a local supermarket. Called in to assess Pelicot, Dr Layet noted how breezily he dismissed his crime, like a genteel grandfather caught pocketing a few cigarettes. Dr Layet detected a "dissonance" in the man's behaviour, and the strong implication that he was hiding something more serious. He told the police that this one was worth closer inspection. Reuters A court sketch depicting Dominique Pelicot on the right hand side, a man with grey hair, wearing a grey T-shirt and blue trousers, sitting up straight and holding a microphone. Behind him is a uniformed man standing guard and four other men, with uncertain expressions of their faces or hanging their heads, who may be some of the co-defendants.Reuters Pelicot's largely maintained a confident demeanour throughout the trial In court, years later, after two long prison interviews with Pelicot and with more than 20 of the other accused, Dr Layet presented a more detailed assessment to the panel of judges. A measured and eloquent expert witness, Dr Layet stressed that Pelicot exhibited no signs of severe mental illness. He could not be dismissed as a "monster". Nor was he psychotic - unable to tell reality from fiction. And yet. There was a "fissure", a split, in Pelicot's personality. A showier witness might have borrowed from popular culture to compare him to a tormented Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or perhaps to Hannibal Lecter, stiff-backed in his prison cell in The Silence of the Lambs. Instead, Dr Layet reached for a mundane image. "Almost like a hard drive," he suggested. A fitting metaphor, given that Pelicot had stored video evidence of his crimes on a computer memory