Dominique Pelicot accepted he may die alone “like a dog”, after admitting to drugging his former wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her.

Mr Pelicot, 71, gave evidence at the Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon, where he was on trial along with 49 of the men accused of accepting his invitation to rape Gisèle Pelicot in their Provence home over a decade.

Questioned by his lawyer Béatrice Zavarro, Mr Pelicot admitted that he had been a “sex addict”, but reiterated his denial of allegations that he had subjected his daughter Caroline Dalian, a pen name, to the same treatment as his wife.

Ms Dalian has told the court she believes she was also drugged and offered to other men by her father, after the discovery of photos on Pelicot’s hard disk in a file entitled: “My daughter naked.” The images show her asleep in underwear that was not hers. While Mr Pelicot kept scores of films of men sexually abusing his wife, none have been found involving his daughter.

This week, Ms Dalian dubbed herself “the forgotten” victim of the trial.

Mr Pelicot, who has denied taking the photos, was asked by a lawyer who he would most like to see in prison and replied: “I’d like to see my daughter face to face. To tell her my truth, it hurts me to see her like this.”

His daughter cut him off by shouting: “I’ll never go to see you ever. You’ll finish alone like a dog.”

He replied: “If I had taken [the photos] I would say so, but I can’t remember. She will never believe me. I may die like a dog. I am not asking her to stand behind my coffin [when I die]. There won’t be a coffin.”

But he insisted: “Even if she doesn’t love me anymore, I will always love her. I know what I did. I know what I didn’t do.”

In his closing statement, Maître Antoine Camus, Gisèle’s lawyer, paid tribute to her for waiving her right to anonymity in hope, as she put it this week, that “macho, patriarchal society” will stop “trivialising” rape.

“Despite everything she has suffered, Gisèle Pelicot has chosen to transform this mud… to go beyond the blackness of her story to give it meaning,” he said.

His client had been the victim of a “mass rape” committed at the “instigation of her husband over ten years”, he went on.

All the defendants had contributed to the “monstrous ordeal of this woman”, he said. “Even a defence lawyer has admitted that it is close to torture and barbarity.”

Mr Camus rejected claims made by many of the defendants that they had been manipulated by Pelicot, with some alleging that he drugged them too when they arrived at the family home in Mazan, near Avignon. The defendants were free to leave the house when they discovered Gisèle inert, the lawyer said, after she had been given such a heavy dose of sedation that doctors likened her state to a coma.

“The manipulation stopped at the bedroom door,” said Mr Camus. “All, upon leaving this house of horror, realised that other men had been there beforehand. None thought it necessary to alert the police.”

In her final address to the court on Tuesday, Gisèle Pelicot denounced defendants as “cowards” and that the “acts of barbarity” she had endured would prevent her from feeling “at peace until the end of my life”. She added: “I’ll learn to live with it. I’ll rebuild myself. But there’ll forever be 51 people who have defiled me.”

Fourteen men have confessed to raping her, while the others deny the charges, arguing that they thought they were taking part in consensual sex games.

“For me, this trial is the trial of cowardice,” she said, adding that while she offered a modicum of recognition to those who confessed to rape by “looking at them in the eye” during their testimony, none had spared her despite her plainly comatose state when they entered the couple’s home.

She said the defendants recruited by her ex-husband may have been “naive” to come to the house. But she insisted: “Your conscience has to kick in when you step into the bedroom. They [the defendants] are not children.”

‘Saving their own skin’

Ms Pelicot said: “It was every man for himself. They all left thinking that there was a problem and they thought about saving their own skin, but not that of this poor unconscious woman. For me, they are all guilty.”

She said Mr Pelicot, with whom she was married for 50 years and had three children, used her to fulfil his sexual fantasies. Referring to him as Monsieur Pelicot, she said: “He found a way by drugging me. He said to himself, ‘I will do what I want with her, by delivering her to strangers’.

“I think Monsieur Pelicot had a lot of fantasies that I perhaps could not satisfy with him. He was very frustrated. But how did he get to that point?”

“As I didn’t want to go to a swingers’ club, he thought he’d found the solution by putting me to sleep.”

Mr Pélicot confirmed her analysis on Tuesday by saying his main motive was to “subjugate an unsubmissive woman”.

She said she had no idea of the abuse until police showed her video evidence they stumbled upon after arresting Mr Pélicot for upskirting in a supermarket in 2020.

The court was told that the first she knew of the rapes was when police started investigating her former husband after he was caught filming under women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020. Officers then discovered the videos he had made of men having sex with his unconscious wife.

Asked if her ex-husband was a sexual predator, she said: “Of course, certainly”, adding: “I don’t forgive him. His actions were unforgivable. I was betrayed and fooled.

“I couldn’t have imagined for a second he was capable of chemical submission … my friends, my family saw nothing.”

As to her decision to make the trial public to ensure “shame changes sides”, she told the court: “I knew what I was exposing myself to by refusing [a trial] behind closed doors. I admit that I feel tired now. I have been in the courtroom all the way through.”

Asked why she continued to use her ex-husband’s name during the trials, she said: “I have grandchildren who are called that. Today, I want them to be proud of their grandmother.

“My name is known across the world now. They shouldn’t be ashamed of carrying that name. Today, we will remember Gisèle Pelicot.”

Imran Khan has been granted bail by a Pakistani court for one of the cases against him but the ex-prime minister is likely to remain in jail because of a host of other charges.

On Wednesday, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, of the Islamabad High Court, accepted the former cricketer’s bail plea in a trial relating to alleged illegal sale of state gifts.

But there was “no chance” of his release because of at least eight other charges against him, Pakistan’s information minister said.

“Release for him is not possible; there are many other cases he needs to secure bail in,” Attaullah Tarar told Pakistani media.

Mr Tarar added that the eight other charges related to the “mayhem” of May 9 2023, when Khan’s supporters rioted and stormed the Pakistani army’s headquarters in response to his arrest.

Khan, 72, has been in prison since August 2023 and has been embroiled in more than 150 criminal cases.

He has been convicted and received several sentences in other cases, including three years for “corrupt practices”, 10 years for leaking state secrets, 14 years in a corruption case and seven years for an unlawful marriage.

Khan, who was ousted from power in 2022 after opposition parties brought a no-confidence motion against him, has said that all the charges against him are politically motivated.

A spokesman for Khan told The Telegraph: “It was obvious, this was politically motivated. Like all other cases on Imran Khan, which now he has either been acquitted from or has been granted bail, there is no reason for him to be in prison.

“He has no case for him which justifies [a] prison sentence.”

The case for which he was granted bail on Wednesday is known as the Toshakhana, or the state treasury case.

The Pakistani government accused Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, of purchasing a Bulgari jewellery set – including a necklace, earrings, bracelets and rings – from the state repository for gifts at a steeply reduced price, allegedly causing a significant loss to public funds.

During a hearing at the Islamabad High Court, Justice Aurangzeb pressed the government’s lawyer to explain how the undervaluation directly benefited Khan.

The lawyer argued that any benefit to Khan’s wife benefited the former prime minister as well.

Justice Aurangzeb dismissed the claim as speculative. “My wife’s possessions are not mine, I’m not sure what century we’re living in,” he said, before granting bail to Khan.

The court ordered Khan to appear before the trial court following the bail.

In July, a UN human rights working group said that Khan has been arbitrarily imprisoned in violation of international law, apparently with an intention to disqualify him from running for political office.

A spokesman for Khan said that he believes the Pakistani government will “stoop again to low levels and put more cases on him, just to try to keep him in prison”.

Khan, who leads the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party, has called for supporters to protest nationwide on Sunday against the government, which, he said, has been installed through a “stolen mandate”.

In a message from prison, dated Nov 15, Khan said: “Democracy in the country has been annihilated. The country has been turned into a Banana Republic!”

He added: “This is why I am calling upon the Pakistani nation, that this is the time, to not only come out on November 24, but for every individual to take on the responsibility to launch a movement for mass mobilisation.

“Through this movement will the dream of genuine freedom, democracy, and rule of law be realised.

“Otherwise, life-long slavery will remain the nation’s destiny. If not now, then when? If not you, then who?”