The mass rape trial that sent shockwaves across France and horrified the world is expected to end on Thursday with the conviction of Dominique Pelicot, who admitted drugging his ex-wife Gisèle and inviting strangers into her bedroom to kill her rape.

Pelicot, a 72-year-old retired electrician and real estate agent, is expected to receive the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison that prosecutors sought in the three-and-a-half-month trial in Avignon.

Fifty other men accused alongside him, most of whom deny the allegations, face prison sentences of between 10 and 18 years for those accused of aggravated rape and four years for one accused of sexual aggression. A man is on the run and is brought to justice in his absence.

They were invited to speak in court for the last time on Monday. A dozen apologized to Gisèle Pelicot, while a handful insisted they “did not intend” to rape and were therefore not rapists. Others said they had nothing to add.

Dominique Pelicot used his last words behind the glass dock to praise the “courage” of his ex-wife, who, according to him, faced the “hint of complicity”. This followed suggestions at the start of the trial that she had willingly participated in her own abuse. These suspicions were quickly dispelled by videos he made of the rapes, which were shown during the hearing.

“The videos were very well filmed. “Nobody could say that they didn’t know what was going on with them,” said their lawyer Stéphane Babonneau. “She would never think of letting these men into her home, let alone do what they did.”

Gisèle Pelicot discovered that her “caring, attentive, perfect” husband of 50 years had abused her and encouraged other men to do the same after he was arrested in September 2020 for upskirts female customer in a local supermarket. When he was taken into custody two months later, police revealed the extent of the drug use and abuse that went on for nearly a decade and showed her some of the photos he had taken of her while she was unconscious.

In an unusual move, Gisèle Pelicot waived her anonymity and insisted that the trial be open to the press and public. The videos, which the court president described as an “attack on human dignity,” should be shown publicly, she said.

During the trial, which began in September, the court learned that Dominique Pelicot met most of the defendants from an online chat room called ” A son of Insuwhich translates to “Without their knowledge.” They came from within 30 miles (50 km) of the Pelicots’ home in the Provençal town of Mazan, whose most notorious resident had previously been the Marquis de Sade.

The 50 defendants are those whom French police identified and tracked down based on Pelicot’s videos. It is believed that at least 20 others are still at large.

Gisèle Pelicot, 73, a grandmother whose insistence that “shame must change sides” has become a global feminist slogan, has grown in confidence and stature over the weeks, fueled by the overwhelming support she has received from the Crowds of women have turned out to cheer her on in and out of the courthouse. Women arrived at dawn every day and waited for hours in rain, cold and bitter mistral winds for a place in the hearing.

“We thought we knew everything men could do to women, but never imagined a husband drugging his wife and leaving her at the mercy of dozens of predators for ten years,” one said.

Antoine Camus, a lawyer who also represented Gisèle Pelicot, questioned how the men he described as a “kaleidoscope of French society” could have been so lacking in empathy that they treated her as “less than nothing.” “The question is not why you went there, but why you stayed?” he told the court.

French and Spanish feminist groups are expected at the courthouse for the verdict. Among other things, they are calling for a change in the way society treats rape victims before, during and after the trial.

“How can it not change things?” Camus asked.