# Inside The Hidden Network Of Men Drugging And Raping Their Wives

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 3 Jun 2026, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/ec124332-7758-401d-827f-b45d003a6421/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

In 2024, the world learned the name Gisele Pelicot. Between 2011 and 2020, she was drugged and raped in her home in France by her husband, Dominique, and dozens of other men while she was unconscious. In a landmark trial, the then-72-year-old Gisele waived her right to anonymity as evidence revealed at least 200 rapes, many of them filmed. Dominique recruited men through a sex chat website, giving detailed instructions on how to abuse his wife. But this is not an isolated case. In 2026, CNN uncovered allegations of a global network of men in group chats sharing tips on drugging and raping their wives, alongside more than 20,000 “sleep content” videos. Investigative journalist Saskya Vandoorne joins us after infiltrating these groups and speaking to survivors. LINKS Learn more about CNN's investigation here. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Saskya Vandoorne Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Video Editor: Julian Rosario Audio Designer: Tegan Salder Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: It's a regular Sunday in twenty eighteen in Devon, England,
[0:08] Speaker 1: and the Watts family have just returned home from church.
[0:11] Speaker 1: Zoe's four children have disbursed to various corners of the house,
[0:15] Speaker 1: and she's settling in for a day at home when
[0:17] Speaker 1: her husband of sixteen years makes a confession. He's been
[0:22] Speaker 1: crushing their son's sleeping medicine into her nightly tea and
[0:26] Speaker 1: raping her once she passes out. He reels off a
[0:30] Speaker 1: shopping list of abuses he has subjected her sleeping body to.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Zoe is in shock, her entire life, her marriage, it
[0:40] Speaker 1: all shatters in a single moment. He's been doing it
[0:44] Speaker 1: for years, he says. Zoe starts to panic. The reality
[0:50] Speaker 1: of what her husband, the man she has trusted, loved,
[0:54] Speaker 1: parented alongside, confided in.
[0:57] Speaker 2: What he is telling.
[0:58] Speaker 1: Her is too painful to comprehend. I'm Jemma Bath and
[1:06] Speaker 1: you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the
[1:10] Speaker 1: world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
[1:14] Speaker 1: know the most about them. In twenty twenty four, the
[1:17] Speaker 1: world learnt the name Gizelle Pelico. Between twenty eleven and
[1:22] Speaker 1: twenty twenty, she was drugged and raped by her husband, Dominic,
[1:26] Speaker 1: and fifty other men in the couple's home while she
[1:30] Speaker 1: was unconscious. Seventy two year old Gizelle waived her right
[1:34] Speaker 1: to anonymity in his trial, and we followed along as
[1:38] Speaker 1: the proceedings detailed at least two hundred horrific rapes, all
[1:42] Speaker 1: of them filmed. Dominic advertised his wife on a sex
[1:47] Speaker 1: chat website, giving rapists instructions on what to where, where
[1:51] Speaker 1: to park, how to abuse his wife, no condoms required,
[1:56] Speaker 1: He'd tell them. These men were firefighters, truck drivers, nurses,
[2:03] Speaker 1: their next door neighbor, men from in and around Jezelle's
[2:07] Speaker 1: small village in France. The case shocked and horrified the world,
[2:13] Speaker 1: but Jazelle's bravery in owning her story and her refusal
[2:17] Speaker 1: to carry shame saw her become an international feminist icon,
[2:22] Speaker 1: a symbol of survivor resistance. But this case, this abuse,
[2:29] Speaker 1: it's not unique. In March twenty twenty six, CNN released
[2:34] Speaker 1: a shocking investigation exposing a global rape academy. Thousands of
[2:39] Speaker 1: men across the world in group chats, teaching each other
[2:43] Speaker 1: and swapping tips on how to drug and rape their wives.
[2:48] Speaker 1: On one website. They found more than twenty thousand videos
[2:51] Speaker 1: of so called sleep content. They had hundreds of thousands
[2:57] Speaker 1: of views. Saskia van Dorn is an award winning investigative
[3:02] Speaker 1: journalist and CNN's Paris bureau chief. During this investigation, she
[3:07] Speaker 1: talked to several victim survivors and infiltrated one of the
[3:10] Speaker 1: group chats sharing rape sleep content. Saskia joins US now. Saskia,
[3:21] Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on True Crime conversations. Firstly,
[3:25] Speaker 1: you covered Giselle Pelico's case intimately in twenty twenty four,
[3:30] Speaker 1: you went to her husband's trial. You've spoken to her since.
[3:34] Speaker 1: What impact did telling that story and hearing those details
[3:39] Speaker 1: in court have on you and your next steps journalistically?
[3:45] Speaker 3: I think if there's one word that stays with me,
[3:48] Speaker 3: it's scale, because I remember when I was sitting in
[3:54] Speaker 3: the courthouse and Giselle Pattico's lawyer began describing the website
[4:00] Speaker 3: that Dominic Pelico had used to recruit over seventy men
[4:04] Speaker 3: to rape his wife, and he described it as the
[4:08] Speaker 3: weapon of the crime. And that's how I think you
[4:12] Speaker 3: can understand how we get to a scale of seventy
[4:17] Speaker 3: men if it was not for this website, Coco Dominic
[4:21] Speaker 3: Pelico would never have been able to find like minded men,
[4:27] Speaker 3: men who shared the same fantasies that he had. And
[4:31] Speaker 3: I think that that's what began, what made us want
[4:36] Speaker 3: to look into these sorts of websites and of course
[4:41] Speaker 3: porn sites where you are now consuming pawn on a
[4:46] Speaker 3: scale that is massive. So I think those were kind
[4:50] Speaker 3: of the link between these stories, which is the scale
[4:57] Speaker 3: of the men and then the scale of the content
[5:01] Speaker 3: that we discovered on this website that we went undercover on.
[5:06] Speaker 1: How did you discover that there was more content beyond
[5:10] Speaker 1: Dominique Pellico's kind of chattering website he was using. Was
[5:13] Speaker 1: it hard to find these other platforms, this other website.
[5:17] Speaker 2: It wasn't hard at all.
[5:19] Speaker 3: There were websites that were advertising themselves as Coco's replacement.
[5:25] Speaker 3: So men, you'd find men discussing this on Reddit chats,
[5:29] Speaker 3: online forums where they would say, oh, Coco has been
[5:32] Speaker 3: taken down, but you might want to head here, here
[5:36] Speaker 3: and here to find the same kind of content, to
[5:39] Speaker 3: find the same like minded people. And that's how we
[5:43] Speaker 3: began going down this rabbit hole. And then Motherless, which
[5:47] Speaker 3: is the website that we ended up going under cover on.
[5:50] Speaker 3: We had also heard from these German journalists who had
[5:54] Speaker 3: worked extensively on this site, and they had already brought
[5:58] Speaker 3: to light a lot of what we will you know,
[6:01] Speaker 3: talk about later on, I imagine sleep content.
[6:04] Speaker 1: Can you tell me about what motherless looks like on
[6:07] Speaker 1: the face? Like when you go onto this website, because
[6:10] Speaker 1: it's not something on the dark Web, it's available just
[6:14] Speaker 1: on a normal browser.
[6:16] Speaker 3: It's readily available, it's not on the dark Web. You
[6:18] Speaker 3: can access it super easily. And as soon as you
[6:21] Speaker 3: are on the landing page, you're going to be faced
[6:24] Speaker 3: with tons of videos showing, you know, different types of porn.
[6:31] Speaker 2: So you're going to have porn.
[6:33] Speaker 3: That is categorized as incest, porn that's categorized as teen
[6:39] Speaker 3: and then you will have search terms for example, Z
[6:46] Speaker 3: passed out, I check, And that's how we were able
[6:49] Speaker 3: to then find discover all of this sleep content and
[6:55] Speaker 3: what is sleep content? Those are videos where you're going
[6:57] Speaker 3: to see women unconscious, women who are then going to
[7:02] Speaker 3: be abused sexually. I mentioned the search term I check,
[7:07] Speaker 3: what's that? Well that will you will see a man
[7:09] Speaker 3: in the video lifting up the eyelids of the woman
[7:12] Speaker 3: to show that she's completely sedated, that she's completely unconscious.
[7:16] Speaker 3: They'll lift up her arm to show that her body's lifeless.
[7:20] Speaker 2: And that's how.
[7:21] Speaker 3: We were able to see these tens of thousands of
[7:24] Speaker 3: videos of you know, women unconscious and and having men
[7:31] Speaker 3: perform sex acts on them. Now I should add that
[7:34] Speaker 3: since our investigation aired, the Motherless was taken offline for
[7:40] Speaker 3: a week because their servers are in the Netherlands, and
[7:44] Speaker 3: the Dutch opened an investigation into Motherless and I've been
[7:49] Speaker 3: on it since and Motherless has cleaned up some of
[7:53] Speaker 3: this content.
[7:55] Speaker 2: They've banned some of those search terms.
[7:58] Speaker 3: But if you were to search for, you know, women
[8:02] Speaker 3: asleep in French or in Spanish, you're still going to
[8:05] Speaker 3: come across that content.
[8:06] Speaker 2: So it hasn't been taken off completely.
[8:08] Speaker 1: And it sounds like these men just find new ways
[8:11] Speaker 1: of kind of serving the content once they're figured out.
[8:16] Speaker 3: Because that's the thing about Motherless is not only is
[8:18] Speaker 3: it a website at porn site that has on average
[8:22] Speaker 3: eighty million visits a month with its core audience in
[8:25] Speaker 3: the US, but it also acts as a bit of
[8:27] Speaker 3: a kind of social media. So you're going to have
[8:30] Speaker 3: men who'll have profiles it'll show how long they've been
[8:34] Speaker 3: on Motherless five years, ten years, fifteen years.
[8:36] Speaker 2: You'll get awarded.
[8:37] Speaker 3: Medals if you've been on there for extended periods of time.
[8:41] Speaker 3: And then it will show the videos that you have
[8:43] Speaker 3: listed on your profile. And of course the more views
[8:47] Speaker 3: your videos have that you've uploaded, the more prestige you
[8:51] Speaker 3: have on this website. So it's also a kind of brotherhood.
[8:56] Speaker 3: You know, men are going to find each other there,
[8:58] Speaker 3: they're going to befriend each other, befriend another user, and
[9:03] Speaker 3: then what we discovered was that they would have links
[9:07] Speaker 3: to Telegram groups or Telegram user names, and that's how
[9:14] Speaker 3: I came across one man who said he was selling
[9:19] Speaker 3: liquid sedative around the world and that for one hundred
[9:23] Speaker 3: and fifty dollars, he would send a bottle of liquid sedative.
[9:27] Speaker 3: It would arrive the next day with detailed instructions as
[9:31] Speaker 3: to how it would affect the woman that you were drugging.
[9:36] Speaker 3: And then there was another user who had a link
[9:40] Speaker 3: to a Telegram group where there were one thousand men
[9:45] Speaker 3: in that group, and that was the one that we infiltrated.
[9:48] Speaker 3: We created a mel persona and began exchanging with men
[9:52] Speaker 3: in that group, and it was it was in real time,
[9:56] Speaker 3: so you had men from across the world sharing tips.
[9:59] Speaker 2: On how to drug and rape their partners.
[10:02] Speaker 1: And I'm assuming the group you were in was one
[10:05] Speaker 1: of many. You just happen to be in this one
[10:07] Speaker 1: group with a thousand men, but we don't know how
[10:10] Speaker 1: many more groups there are.
[10:11] Speaker 3: Just to give you an example, German, the German journalists,
[10:13] Speaker 3: so speaking about earlier, they infiltrated a group with seventy
[10:17] Speaker 3: thousand no so you get this idea this is far
[10:22] Speaker 3: more widespread, and that in fact Motherless was acting as
[10:26] Speaker 3: a gateway, so men would find themselves maybe consuming at
[10:31] Speaker 3: the beginning regular porn, then because of algorithms that favor
[10:36] Speaker 3: extreme content, finding themselves on this dark corner of this site.
[10:41] Speaker 3: Because I should mention that, yes, there are sixty to
[10:45] Speaker 3: eighty million visits on this site per month, but that's
[10:49] Speaker 3: not to say they're all they're looking at sleep content.
[10:53] Speaker 3: A lot of these users would just be looking at porn.
[10:57] Speaker 3: But you can see how some would arrive on the page.
[11:02] Speaker 3: Start off by looking at regular porn, find themselves in
[11:04] Speaker 3: this dark corner of the website looking at sleep pornography,
[11:09] Speaker 3: and then find the link to a telegram group, and
[11:13] Speaker 3: that's when they're exchanging in real time with men around
[11:16] Speaker 3: the world.
[11:17] Speaker 1: Sitting in that group, seeing these conversations. I know you
[11:20] Speaker 1: kind of this was an investigation you did over several months.
[11:24] Speaker 1: What was it like being immersed in their world, What
[11:27] Speaker 1: were their conversations like, their mindset like? What did you
[11:31] Speaker 1: learn about them?
[11:33] Speaker 3: I think that it was more than just creating content.
[11:36] Speaker 3: It was also about camaraderie, So this feeling that they
[11:40] Speaker 3: were getting a thrill in the act itself, so by
[11:44] Speaker 3: drugging and raping their partners, but also the dynamics surrounding it,
[11:49] Speaker 3: So bringing the video back to this group, who would
[11:51] Speaker 3: then go on to praise the acts of you know,
[11:56] Speaker 3: the individual involved. And it also felt like there were
[12:01] Speaker 3: there was this kind of you know, teacher student dynamic
[12:07] Speaker 3: with some of the relationships. So you would there'd be
[12:11] Speaker 3: a user who had been on Motherless for years and
[12:15] Speaker 3: who would be boasting about drugging and raping their partner
[12:17] Speaker 3: for a long time, and they would be sharing tips
[12:21] Speaker 3: with the younger men who perhaps had never tried it,
[12:24] Speaker 3: and they're therefore normalizing the entire.
[12:27] Speaker 2: Idea of rape.
[12:28] Speaker 3: And you could see that these younger guys who might
[12:31] Speaker 3: never have thought about doing this, began to feel like, oh, well,
[12:36] Speaker 3: these all these guys are doing it. They've been drugging
[12:39] Speaker 3: and raping their partners for years and getting away with it,
[12:43] Speaker 3: so maybe.
[12:43] Speaker 2: It's not that bad.
[12:45] Speaker 3: And you also got the sense that it was just
[12:48] Speaker 3: the drugs were just a facilitator, and the ease with
[12:51] Speaker 3: which they were able to do this to their wives,
[12:55] Speaker 3: to their girlfriends, and also the tutorials that they were
[12:59] Speaker 3: sharing with another how much does she weigh? Does she
[13:03] Speaker 3: have a fast metabolism? Make sure you don't overdose? And
[13:07] Speaker 3: that might be One of the most shocking things that
[13:10] Speaker 3: we discovered was the way that women were treated as
[13:14] Speaker 3: guinea pigs. And these are supposedly, in some cases, the
[13:18] Speaker 3: mother of their children, women that they'd been with for ten, fifteen,
[13:22] Speaker 3: twenty years.
[13:24] Speaker 2: And so I think.
[13:25] Speaker 3: What's so pernicious about this kind of content, these kinds
[13:30] Speaker 3: of groups is how the men are desensitized to it.
[13:34] Speaker 3: And the truth is Gemma we as the journalists who
[13:38] Speaker 3: were in these groups, were desensitized to it as well.
[13:41] Speaker 3: After a while, you know, or there's another video of
[13:44] Speaker 3: one being raped, you just don't see it the same
[13:47] Speaker 3: way because you're consuming vast amounts of this extreme content.
[13:54] Speaker 1: I can see why you kind of labeled this as
[13:58] Speaker 1: a rape academy, because that's it's exactly what it what
[14:02] Speaker 1: it is. It's kind of men teaching men. It's a
[14:04] Speaker 1: school for how to rapen drug your wives.
[14:09] Speaker 3: And that term was used by a French MP who
[14:13] Speaker 3: herself had been drugged by a senator, and when we
[14:19] Speaker 3: came to her with her with our findings, she said, yeah,
[14:22] Speaker 3: this seems like a school. This seems like an academy.
[14:25] Speaker 3: And it is twenty four hours a day. It was
[14:29] Speaker 3: in the morning, in the afternoon, and of course very
[14:31] Speaker 3: much at night, and you.
[14:34] Speaker 2: Felt that it was. You know, what we discovered was
[14:36] Speaker 2: that it was across the world.
[14:39] Speaker 3: There were men from France, the US, Canada, all over
[14:47] Speaker 3: Europe and all ages. Some of them would talk about
[14:51] Speaker 3: their professions, all different.
[14:52] Speaker 2: Types of careers. It really was.
[14:55] Speaker 3: There wasn't a type, which was also I think what
[15:00] Speaker 3: was quite unnerving is that it could be anyone, could
[15:04] Speaker 3: be any man out there. There really wasn't a profile
[15:07] Speaker 3: that they were fitting well.
[15:08] Speaker 1: I think that was one of the most shocking things
[15:11] Speaker 1: that came out of Dominic Pelico's trial, and the fifty
[15:14] Speaker 1: other men. They were firefighters, nurses, the next door neighbor,
[15:19] Speaker 1: you know, a baker, like it was. You couldn't pick
[15:22] Speaker 1: who it was going to be. And it was quite
[15:23] Speaker 1: shocking that they were these normal kind of men. So
[15:27] Speaker 1: you were finding the same thing that they were everyone.
[15:29] Speaker 1: They were mailmen, they were police officers, they were all
[15:31] Speaker 1: sorts of people, all sorts of people from all walks
[15:34] Speaker 1: of life.
[15:35] Speaker 3: Some had high power jobs, others were unemployed. And also,
[15:42] Speaker 3: as I said, some of them were very experienced. Others
[15:45] Speaker 3: you felt they just stumbled across these groups. And this
[15:52] Speaker 3: goes to show why these unmoderated platforms can be so
[15:58] Speaker 3: dangerous because you may be able to, you know, remove
[16:04] Speaker 3: some of that problematic content, some of the illegal content
[16:08] Speaker 3: once it's been flagged to you, but you can't control
[16:12] Speaker 3: if there's a link that's living on a user's profile
[16:15] Speaker 3: that everybody's then congregating on.
[16:17] Speaker 2: That's it.
[16:18] Speaker 3: It's too late that that you know, the horse has
[16:20] Speaker 3: left and they're all now in another group, and you
[16:22] Speaker 3: may be able to take off that user from your website,
[16:26] Speaker 3: but if they know, motherless to be a space where.
[16:30] Speaker 2: You can come and.
[16:33] Speaker 3: Find men who feel the same way as you who
[16:36] Speaker 3: are into the same kind of you know, criminal illegal content,
[16:43] Speaker 3: then you are going to keep coming back to it.
[16:45] Speaker 3: And we know with Motherless that several years ago, when
[16:49] Speaker 3: the German journalists first did this investigation, they were made
[16:52] Speaker 3: aware that there was this huge community on their site
[16:59] Speaker 3: that into sleep porn. And yes they went and banned
[17:04] Speaker 3: the words back then the search terms.
[17:06] Speaker 2: But look where we are today.
[17:09] Speaker 3: Lots, you know, lots of videos reappeared, these groups found
[17:13] Speaker 3: each other again, so you know, the question needs to
[17:16] Speaker 3: be asked, is enough being done to deter these men
[17:21] Speaker 3: from creating these groups and from uploading this content.
[17:25] Speaker 1: Up next, Saskia tells me about the dms she exchanged
[17:29] Speaker 1: with one man in particular while working undercover on the site.
[17:33] Speaker 1: Tell me about the chats you started having on the side,
[17:36] Speaker 1: the dms from one particular man and how that kind
[17:39] Speaker 1: of evolved.
[17:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, And the truth is because we were working under
[17:46] Speaker 3: very you know, strict guidelines.
[17:50] Speaker 2: We were there.
[17:51] Speaker 3: Undercovera but we were there not never to encourage anybody else.
[17:56] Speaker 2: We were there as observers.
[17:57] Speaker 3: We remained journalists by just us questions in these groups,
[18:01] Speaker 3: which meant that a lot of the conversations went cold
[18:05] Speaker 3: because in these groups, pictures, videos of your wife, of
[18:09] Speaker 3: your girlfriend, that's currency. And very quickly the men would
[18:14] Speaker 3: grow suspicious of us because.
[18:16] Speaker 2: We weren't sharing in a thing.
[18:18] Speaker 3: We weren't, you know, relaying any stories when the experience
[18:22] Speaker 3: that we'd had, we were just sitting there and listening.
[18:26] Speaker 3: But there was one man, a Polish user, and he
[18:30] Speaker 3: seemed content just to share content with me over DM
[18:35] Speaker 3: of his wife, who he said he had drugged and raped.
[18:41] Speaker 3: And I got the feeling with Puore that's the name
[18:45] Speaker 3: we're giving him, it's not his real name, that he
[18:49] Speaker 3: was just wanting to speak to someone else about what
[18:55] Speaker 3: he had been doing to his wife, what he wanted
[18:57] Speaker 3: to do to his wife, and didn't need anything in return.
[19:02] Speaker 2: So I would, you know, just asking questions about why
[19:04] Speaker 2: he was doing this.
[19:06] Speaker 3: His answer was because he could, because this was something
[19:10] Speaker 3: he found arousing when she was in this state that
[19:13] Speaker 3: he had complete and utter control over her. And a
[19:17] Speaker 3: crucial part of the investigation for US was proving that
[19:21] Speaker 3: these men were real, that they weren't just user names,
[19:25] Speaker 3: that they weren't just pseudonyms. And that's something we were
[19:29] Speaker 3: able to do with because even though he wouldn't meet
[19:31] Speaker 3: with our undercover persona, which is how we first began
[19:34] Speaker 3: to try and.
[19:37] Speaker 2: See him in real life.
[19:39] Speaker 3: He lets slip that he was going to be at
[19:41] Speaker 3: a party in Poland, and we traveled there, knew the
[19:48] Speaker 3: restaurant where he was going to be with his wife,
[19:51] Speaker 3: and I think that was one of the most stressful
[19:56] Speaker 3: parts of the investigation because we I had many discussions
[20:01] Speaker 3: before that moment with all of our editorial team to discuss,
[20:08] Speaker 3: you know, do we confront plots, do we speak to
[20:12] Speaker 3: his wife, because up until then we hadn't been able
[20:15] Speaker 3: to confirm his identity, so we didn't know is this
[20:18] Speaker 3: guy who he says he is?
[20:21] Speaker 2: And when we were in the restaurant and he was
[20:25] Speaker 2: just a few meters.
[20:27] Speaker 3: Away, knowing what he had done to his wife, knowing
[20:32] Speaker 3: that all of this was presumably true, it was really
[20:39] Speaker 3: hard as a woman not to go to her and
[20:43] Speaker 3: not to go to him. But we didn't know how
[20:45] Speaker 3: he was going to react. We didn't know what he
[20:48] Speaker 3: might do to her, and so with her safety in mind,
[20:51] Speaker 3: we decided to pass our findings on to the police,
[20:55] Speaker 3: to the Polish police, and they acted incredibly quickly. They
[20:59] Speaker 3: arrested him, and he admitted to the charges that were
[21:03] Speaker 3: brought against him, and he should be sentenced in a
[21:05] Speaker 3: few months time.
[21:08] Speaker 1: When you were observing him and his wife, were they
[21:12] Speaker 1: normal Did they just look like a normal couple.
[21:14] Speaker 3: It's hard not to project things onto them. But it
[21:19] Speaker 3: felt to me that she looked incredibly vacant, that it
[21:23] Speaker 3: was almost as if her body knew but her mind
[21:26] Speaker 3: obviously didn't.
[21:27] Speaker 2: And and there was this strange.
[21:30] Speaker 3: Dynamic on the dance floor where you know, she would
[21:34] Speaker 3: be dancing with friends and then he would come to
[21:37] Speaker 3: her on the dance floor, she would go back to
[21:40] Speaker 3: her table, and it felt like she was fleeing him.
[21:44] Speaker 3: So for us, you know, in our role as observers,
[21:49] Speaker 3: I felt that there was a kind of coldness between them.
[21:53] Speaker 3: But it's hard to tell if that was, you know,
[21:56] Speaker 3: something that was that was real. Maybe they just had
[21:58] Speaker 3: an argument, who knows, But it was just for us
[22:05] Speaker 3: so important to be able to show these guys are real.
[22:08] Speaker 3: Here's one who we spoke to during the course of
[22:12] Speaker 3: our investigation, and you know, now he's admitted to it.
[22:16] Speaker 3: How many more men are there out there like him,
[22:19] Speaker 3: where women are completely oblivious that they're being drugged and
[22:23] Speaker 3: raped by their partners.
[22:24] Speaker 1: Like you were saying before, with like the prevalence of this,
[22:28] Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to go, Like where do you go?
[22:30] Speaker 1: Is it the tech companies? Is it law enforcement? Is
[22:33] Speaker 1: it moderation systems? Like how do we kind of clamp
[22:38] Speaker 1: down on this if we are just seeing them kind
[22:40] Speaker 1: of popping back up all the time.
[22:41] Speaker 3: That's what makes it incredibly hard when it comes to
[22:46] Speaker 3: tackling this problem.
[22:47] Speaker 2: We were speaking about Coco earlier.
[22:50] Speaker 3: It was brought down, and in the past few weeks
[22:53] Speaker 3: a website that is called Coco Land has now re emerged.
[22:58] Speaker 3: It has exactly the same interface that Coco had. It's
[23:03] Speaker 3: advertising itself essentially as the same Coco, and Coco was
[23:08] Speaker 3: cited in twenty two thousand criminal cases.
[23:12] Speaker 2: There were murders that were being organized on Coco, there.
[23:15] Speaker 3: Was child sex abuse imagery that was being shared there,
[23:19] Speaker 3: and yet a website has now reappeared. So there is
[23:24] Speaker 3: this issue of you bring one down, what is stopping
[23:28] Speaker 3: creators owners from bringing another one, you know, into existence?
[23:35] Speaker 3: And so clearly I think moderators and owners maybe you
[23:42] Speaker 3: don't face enough scruciny or.
[23:46] Speaker 2: You know, there aren't enough.
[23:49] Speaker 3: Deterrence for them to create these new websites. But I
[23:54] Speaker 3: also think it's worth mentioning that we're talking about a
[23:57] Speaker 3: ninety billion dollar industry. That is how much, you know,
[24:02] Speaker 3: the global porn industry is worth.
[24:07] Speaker 2: So there's a lot at stake here. And we touched
[24:11] Speaker 2: upon the algorithms earlier, but on a lot of the
[24:15] Speaker 2: we mentioned Motherless, there are other websites where there it's
[24:18] Speaker 2: this kind of sleep porn. We've come across it again.
[24:22] Speaker 3: They're videos that will have on them, you know, raped
[24:27] Speaker 3: women who are asleep. That's what they're selling. For eight euros.
[24:32] Speaker 3: You can buy a bundle of that and you don't
[24:35] Speaker 3: need an email address to access these these sites. You
[24:39] Speaker 3: just land on them and that's what's being sold. And
[24:42] Speaker 3: that's because, as you know, men are consuming this content
[24:50] Speaker 3: and they get desensitized to it, they tend to then
[24:54] Speaker 3: click on more and more extreme content. And that's where
[25:00] Speaker 3: where there is an Experts will tell you this a
[25:03] Speaker 3: failure in moderating this kind of content, because as soon
[25:08] Speaker 3: as you've got the word rape there, you know the
[25:11] Speaker 3: site should be geo blocked, brought down. You know, That's
[25:14] Speaker 3: what a lot of the experts and ad advocates who've
[25:18] Speaker 3: been trying to combat this problem, have been fighting for
[25:23] Speaker 3: and they say that, you know, it's just what's happening
[25:26] Speaker 3: in the online world. The policing of the online world
[25:29] Speaker 3: just isn't in step with what's happening in the offline world,
[25:34] Speaker 3: and that a lot of the behavior that we see
[25:40] Speaker 3: on these porn sites, like, for example, strangulation.
[25:45] Speaker 2: This is an example that I've brought up before.
[25:48] Speaker 3: Twenty years ago, strangulation during sex was incredibly rare, it
[25:53] Speaker 3: was niche. But since the porn industry has, you know,
[25:58] Speaker 3: with the algorithms, pushed this of extreme content into the mainstream.
[26:02] Speaker 2: There are.
[26:04] Speaker 3: A third of women in the UK who will experience
[26:07] Speaker 3: trigulation in their twenties. So it just goes to show
[26:11] Speaker 3: how what we're seeing online then shapes what's happening to
[26:19] Speaker 3: women in the bedroom. And so there's an argument there
[26:23] Speaker 3: that the porn industry isn't reflecting our sexual desires but
[26:28] Speaker 3: shaping them. Erotica, you know, has been around for decades.
[26:34] Speaker 3: No one is suggesting when you listen to the experts,
[26:39] Speaker 3: banning porn in its entirety, but it's extreme porn on
[26:43] Speaker 3: this scale that is so readily available.
[26:47] Speaker 2: That is harming men and women.
[26:52] Speaker 1: But I would go nick one step further and say
[26:54] Speaker 1: that regular pawn on these websites that are readily available,
[26:59] Speaker 1: not motherless like all of the other porn sites that
[27:01] Speaker 1: you can just land on, most of them are not
[27:05] Speaker 1: showing loving, kind, gentle sex.
[27:10] Speaker 2: They're showing quite violent or.
[27:13] Speaker 1: Dominant and maybe they're the words that they start with,
[27:16] Speaker 1: dominant sex or lots of like quite violent angles of
[27:20] Speaker 1: women and stuff, and then it gets kind of grosser
[27:24] Speaker 1: and more disturbing from there. So even the normal porn
[27:28] Speaker 1: that is readily available to young boys to men, I
[27:32] Speaker 1: would argue, is not nice sex.
[27:35] Speaker 2: Yes, it's sexual violence towards women.
[27:38] Speaker 3: And we saw this also whereas we haven't mentioned Epstein,
[27:41] Speaker 3: but you know in the Epstein riles, we saw how
[27:45] Speaker 3: they were grooming the girls by showing them porn. This
[27:48] Speaker 3: is what you know, Jeffrey Epstein would like you to do.
[27:51] Speaker 3: This is your homework for this evening. And I think
[27:57] Speaker 3: that when we go back talking regulation, Yes, age verification
[28:03] Speaker 3: has been introduced in some countries and that will stop
[28:07] Speaker 3: six year olds perhaps coming across it once when they're
[28:10] Speaker 3: on the iPad, But is it going to stop adolescence.
[28:13] Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people aren't convinced that age
[28:17] Speaker 3: verification is going to help solve the problem going after
[28:23] Speaker 3: these sites. Also, the way that they have been built,
[28:26] Speaker 3: the way that they're created, is done in a way
[28:30] Speaker 3: where the risk is spread. So they've structured it deliberately
[28:36] Speaker 3: to make it hard for law enforcement to go after them.
[28:39] Speaker 3: Let's use the case of Motherless. You know that the
[28:42] Speaker 3: servers are in the Netherlands, the parent company is going
[28:46] Speaker 3: to be registered in another country. The owner, we think,
[28:49] Speaker 3: is in the US, So you need to have an
[28:53] Speaker 3: international corporation for any kind of case to be brought
[28:57] Speaker 3: against them. And and that's why it makes it so
[29:02] Speaker 3: hard for any kind of you know, charges to be
[29:06] Speaker 3: brought against them in the long term. But I would
[29:09] Speaker 3: also say, and Giselle Pellico is the first person to
[29:12] Speaker 3: tell you this, that it's a.
[29:13] Speaker 2: Question of education.
[29:15] Speaker 3: That you know, boys from a young age need to
[29:19] Speaker 3: be taught what consent is and need to be taught
[29:24] Speaker 3: that women, you know, need to be respected and need
[29:31] Speaker 3: to be listened to.
[29:32] Speaker 2: One hundred percent.
[29:34] Speaker 1: I was I was really shocked to hear the statistics.
[29:37] Speaker 1: Getting back to the specifics of sleep rape content, you
[29:41] Speaker 1: had figures in there. For the UK, nearly a quarter
[29:44] Speaker 1: of all sexual assault victims are assaulted while asleep or unconscious.
[29:48] Speaker 1: That's an enormous number. It makes me think, have you
[29:52] Speaker 1: seen any figures. I haven't seen any figures for Australia
[29:55] Speaker 1: or do we know more globally what those figures look like.
[29:59] Speaker 3: I think it's a big issue in that there isn't
[30:02] Speaker 3: enough data right now and anecdotally since looking into these cases,
[30:11] Speaker 3: you start seeing instances of women being drugged and raped
[30:17] Speaker 3: by their husbands kind of you know, all over I
[30:21] Speaker 3: mean there are I'll give you the example of the UK.
[30:24] Speaker 3: In the UK in September and October, you are going
[30:27] Speaker 3: to have two cases where a man is accused of
[30:31] Speaker 3: drugging and raping his wife and allegedly enlisting thirteen men
[30:37] Speaker 3: to come and rape her in that September. In October,
[30:41] Speaker 3: another case of a man who has been accused of
[30:44] Speaker 3: drugging and raping his wife and inviting six men allegedly
[30:48] Speaker 3: to come and rape her. So Dominic Pelico was not
[30:52] Speaker 3: an outlier. He was the beginning. And I wonder is
[30:57] Speaker 3: this a crime that is on the rise or is
[31:00] Speaker 3: it that Gazelle Pelico coming out speaking telling other women,
[31:05] Speaker 3: Shae must change sides, please speak up. Has this meant
[31:10] Speaker 3: that women are now more prepared to come forward. It's
[31:13] Speaker 3: really hard to tell because the data just isn't there.
[31:17] Speaker 3: But anecdotally, having spoken to psychologists who have profiled a
[31:21] Speaker 3: lot of the defendants in the Pelico trial, psychiatrists who
[31:26] Speaker 3: have been speaking with a lot of men perpetrators of
[31:31] Speaker 3: this type of crime, they have told me that they're
[31:34] Speaker 3: seeing more cases.
[31:35] Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, it's not a leap
[31:39] Speaker 2: to make.
[31:40] Speaker 3: To look at how ubiquitous this content is. And again
[31:46] Speaker 3: this idea that a man will stumble across this will
[31:50] Speaker 3: never have even thought of it, but because everyone else
[31:53] Speaker 3: that he is suddenly in a telegram group is doing it,
[31:57] Speaker 3: it just doesn't make it as scary. And you really
[32:01] Speaker 3: got this sense going back to the telegram group that
[32:03] Speaker 3: there wasn't any shame for them, like it wasn't something
[32:07] Speaker 3: to be ashamed about. In fact, it was something to
[32:10] Speaker 3: be praised. And to give you again to reflect how
[32:15] Speaker 3: this group really was an upside down world, complete opposite
[32:21] Speaker 3: to what we live in the reality we live in here.
[32:25] Speaker 3: You know, Giselle Pellico is an icon. She's the person
[32:30] Speaker 3: a lot of women look up to in these in
[32:33] Speaker 3: this echosystem, in this kind of dark brotherhood, it's dominic
[32:38] Speaker 3: Pellico who's the hero.
[32:40] Speaker 2: She's the one to be emulated and to be copied.
[32:44] Speaker 3: So it just gives you, you know, that juxtaposition and
[32:48] Speaker 3: how these two worlds are vastly different and apart.
[32:53] Speaker 2: And I think that you know, the men again who.
[32:57] Speaker 3: Were speaking to each other in these groups, they found
[33:01] Speaker 3: comfort in this and being friends. You know, They've got
[33:08] Speaker 3: a sense that they felt here that they were completely
[33:11] Speaker 3: uninhibited and that they could share their deepest, darkest secrets
[33:14] Speaker 3: and wouldn't be vilified for it. Quite the opposite. They
[33:17] Speaker 3: were one of them. And that feeling of belonging, I
[33:22] Speaker 3: think is also something today that we see in Toxic
[33:26] Speaker 3: Masculinity manisphere. Like all of these themes, these subjects they do,
[33:31] Speaker 3: they are intertwined. And when we're discussing, you know, how
[33:36] Speaker 3: do we tackle this problem, I think asking men how
[33:41] Speaker 3: they can better help each other is also a big
[33:44] Speaker 3: part of the problem of this issue.
[33:46] Speaker 1: I think what makes me angry is I understand herd mentality.
[33:49] Speaker 1: I understand being desenstheitized. I can kind of see, you know,
[33:54] Speaker 1: how they would go down that route. But then I go,
[33:56] Speaker 1: but women wouldn't be doing this. I haven't heard ale case.
[34:00] Speaker 1: Have you? You're the person who ask have you heard
[34:02] Speaker 1: of a case of a woman drugging and raping her
[34:05] Speaker 1: husband and inviting women to come and do the same thing.
[34:08] Speaker 2: I think it would be physically impossible.
[34:11] Speaker 3: And no, and on these websites, at no point did
[34:16] Speaker 3: I ever see a woman being violent towards a man.
[34:22] Speaker 2: It was it was always the other way around.
[34:25] Speaker 3: And I think that's again when we talk about how
[34:28] Speaker 3: can men and women help each other, because I do
[34:32] Speaker 3: think it's important for it to not become a them
[34:37] Speaker 3: versus us, you know, situation of we're trying to come
[34:40] Speaker 3: to some kind of find a solution, find a way
[34:44] Speaker 3: to combat these spaces and this crime. It's also we
[34:49] Speaker 3: need men who are in these who are on these sides.
[34:53] Speaker 3: And I'm sure there are many who stumbled across this
[34:55] Speaker 3: content and thought to themselves, this is horrific, this is terrible.
[35:00] Speaker 3: You know, I want nothing to do with this. I'm
[35:02] Speaker 3: leaving this platform. But did they say something, you know,
[35:08] Speaker 3: did they flag it. There's a man that I'm speaking
[35:14] Speaker 3: with at the moment who was addicted to Motherless between
[35:18] Speaker 3: the ages of sixteen and twenty, and he really talks
[35:20] Speaker 3: about the kind of descent into hell of the Motherless machine,
[35:24] Speaker 3: how he first went on there just you know, consuming
[35:29] Speaker 3: classic porn and then fell into this sleep community and
[35:36] Speaker 3: managed to kind of extract himself from it when he
[35:38] Speaker 3: realized just how bad it was, how violent it was.
[35:43] Speaker 3: And he is now trying to help, in fact, law
[35:46] Speaker 3: enforcement track down some of these guys. He will flag
[35:50] Speaker 3: the account, he will flag the content. In some instances,
[35:53] Speaker 3: he'll even try and find the woman to alert her
[35:57] Speaker 3: to what's happening. And you know, it's a point we
[36:03] Speaker 3: aren't touched upon. But there are also a lot of
[36:05] Speaker 3: vigilantes out there now because they feel that a lot
[36:08] Speaker 3: enough isn't being done by law enforcement, who are taking
[36:12] Speaker 3: upon themselves to go and try and.
[36:14] Speaker 2: Police these websites.
[36:17] Speaker 3: And I'm absolutely not suggesting that this is something that
[36:21] Speaker 3: men should be doing, but I think it also goes
[36:23] Speaker 3: to show that there are men out there who may
[36:27] Speaker 3: not have said something at first, but now feel compelled
[36:31] Speaker 3: to do something, and that I find interesting.
[36:34] Speaker 1: We've talked about kind of male violence towards women and
[36:38] Speaker 1: the fact that we're not seeing it happen from women
[36:40] Speaker 1: to men. But what about homosexual relationships? What about gaming?
[36:43] Speaker 1: Are they kind of doing this as well?
[36:45] Speaker 3: So are when you look at Motherless, it very much
[36:49] Speaker 3: is centered on violence towards women. Having said that, we
[36:53] Speaker 3: do know that there are men who are, of course
[37:00] Speaker 3: survivors as well. There were, in fact, a few cases
[37:03] Speaker 3: of male survivors who did reach out to us after
[37:07] Speaker 3: it was published to say that they were in coercive relationships.
[37:12] Speaker 2: And that they had, you know, been abuse sexually.
[37:15] Speaker 3: But we have never come across any kind of you know,
[37:18] Speaker 3: content that shows men being drugged and raped by other men.
[37:22] Speaker 3: But that's not to say that you know it exists,
[37:25] Speaker 3: that it doesn't exist. It just is that in our
[37:28] Speaker 3: investigation we didn't come across that type of content.
[37:31] Speaker 1: Well, it's comforting that there are men that are willing
[37:35] Speaker 1: to kind of put their hand up and you know,
[37:38] Speaker 1: this guy being a mole really and feeding back. I
[37:42] Speaker 1: guess that's a good news story amongst the muck that
[37:46] Speaker 1: is this story. I want to change pace a bit
[37:49] Speaker 1: and tell some of the victim survivors' stories, just so
[37:52] Speaker 1: that listeners can get a bit more of an idea
[37:54] Speaker 1: of the real impact here on the women. Can you
[37:57] Speaker 1: tell me about Zoe Watt's what happened to her? And
[38:01] Speaker 1: how did you find interviewing her and telling her story?
[38:07] Speaker 3: So, Zoe was married to her husband for sixteen years.
[38:11] Speaker 3: They have four children together, and he was a childhood sweetheart.
[38:18] Speaker 2: And one day.
[38:19] Speaker 3: After church, he comes home, makes her a cup of
[38:23] Speaker 3: tea and tells her that he has been drugging her
[38:28] Speaker 3: with their son's sleep medication, that he's been crushing in
[38:31] Speaker 3: her tea last thing at night, and he has been
[38:35] Speaker 3: raping her in her seat, and he's been taking photos
[38:38] Speaker 3: and videos. And Zoe's world, of course, completely collapses, and
[38:47] Speaker 3: in her words, what was so hard for her at
[38:50] Speaker 3: the beginning was just to be able to wrap her
[38:54] Speaker 3: head around what had happened and to be able to
[38:59] Speaker 3: understand and that this was abuse, because at the start,
[39:03] Speaker 3: and this is what we have seen with so many
[39:05] Speaker 3: of these survivors, is that the emotional context makes it
[39:09] Speaker 3: so difficult for the survivor to accept that the man
[39:14] Speaker 3: she loved, the man she trusted the most, the man
[39:16] Speaker 3: she has built an entire family within future with, has
[39:22] Speaker 3: become her aggressor. And in Zoe's case, at first she thought,
[39:29] Speaker 3: I'll be able to handle this myself, will separate, but
[39:34] Speaker 3: I don't want the children to lose their father. I
[39:36] Speaker 3: don't want him to be locked away for a long
[39:40] Speaker 3: time because the children will know what their father did
[39:43] Speaker 3: and they'll have a reputation.
[39:45] Speaker 2: And it's just so much.
[39:51] Speaker 3: It was so much for her to take in to digest.
[39:55] Speaker 3: For her, rape was the guy who rises you in
[40:00] Speaker 3: a parking lot. You know, she couldn't understand that the
[40:04] Speaker 3: man who she had been sleeping with would do this to.
[40:09] Speaker 2: Her, and and and could she label it as rape?
[40:13] Speaker 3: She has during our interview together, she really struggled to
[40:17] Speaker 3: label it as rape. And so for Zoe it was
[40:20] Speaker 3: a long road to justice because it was thanks to
[40:24] Speaker 3: her family who encouraged her to press charges that she
[40:29] Speaker 3: eventually did go to the police. He was then arrested
[40:33] Speaker 3: and now he's serving a eleven year prison sentence. But
[40:39] Speaker 3: it was it was really hard for her because you know,
[40:41] Speaker 3: the stigma attached to this as well. When she used
[40:44] Speaker 3: to go and do her shopping, the neighbors would say, well,
[40:49] Speaker 3: you know, it's not that bad. I mean, he is
[40:51] Speaker 3: your husband, after all. It wasn't like you were rape
[40:54] Speaker 3: by a stranger. So it goes to show also the
[40:57] Speaker 3: ignorance when it comes to this type of and and
[41:01] Speaker 3: that's you know that Zoe's story. Amanda's story, Amanda stand
[41:05] Speaker 3: her was more complex because she was under medication, she
[41:10] Speaker 3: had been taking sleeping tablets, and he was raping her
[41:15] Speaker 3: in her sleep. He was, you know, abusing her and
[41:19] Speaker 3: when Amanda so he admitted it to Amanda, and there
[41:24] Speaker 3: was a lot of coacsive control in that relationship as well.
[41:29] Speaker 3: And Amanda, when she discovered all of this, goes to
[41:32] Speaker 3: the police, armed with the videos and the police say, well,
[41:37] Speaker 3: this isn't really evidence because you could be pretending to
[41:39] Speaker 3: be to.
[41:40] Speaker 2: Be asleep in the videos.
[41:42] Speaker 3: And I think that is quite revealing of how police
[41:48] Speaker 3: need better training when it comes to being able to
[41:51] Speaker 3: recognize drug facilitated sexual assault. And for Amanda, she had
[41:59] Speaker 3: text messages from him where he apologized for what he
[42:02] Speaker 3: had done the night before. With that, she was able
[42:05] Speaker 3: to bring charges against him. But when I met Amanda,
[42:09] Speaker 3: she was still living in the home where the abuse
[42:12] Speaker 3: had happened. Amanda couldn't sleep in the bed because for
[42:16] Speaker 3: her it was now become the scene of the crime,
[42:20] Speaker 3: and she would sleep every night on the sofa, and
[42:24] Speaker 3: that also the bedroom becomes something that you know, that's
[42:33] Speaker 3: where we go to rest, that's where we go to
[42:36] Speaker 3: it's a restorative place, but it becomes this dark, scary,
[42:43] Speaker 3: terrifying place for these survivors.
[42:47] Speaker 2: And Amanda spoke to that, I thought very eloquently in
[42:51] Speaker 2: the piece.
[42:52] Speaker 1: I think from watching and listening to Zoe and Amanda's stories,
[42:56] Speaker 1: what I took away was obviously all the emotions you've
[43:00] Speaker 1: talked about, but the hurt that's involved with being abused
[43:05] Speaker 1: and not knowing about it and then finding out and
[43:09] Speaker 1: like the betrayal of that, Like those emotions, Like it's
[43:13] Speaker 1: such a different kind of crime to be talking about,
[43:17] Speaker 1: with so many more complex emotions, because it's not like
[43:20] Speaker 1: someone attacked them in the street, they knew what was happening,
[43:23] Speaker 1: they could kind of wrestle with them in the moment.
[43:25] Speaker 1: There's so much more kind of complexity to it.
[43:28] Speaker 3: And with Zoe, she talks about a disassociation and how
[43:31] Speaker 3: long it took for her body to recover because in
[43:36] Speaker 3: a way, the body knew but the mind didn't, and
[43:40] Speaker 3: it took Zoe a long time to be able to
[43:42] Speaker 3: bring those two back together. Another survivor we speak to
[43:47] Speaker 3: in the piece, Valentina, not her real name. She talks
[43:51] Speaker 3: about when she saw the videos, feeling like she was
[43:56] Speaker 3: a protagonist in a film, that in a horror film,
[44:00] Speaker 3: but because she has no recollection of it, no memory
[44:03] Speaker 3: of it, it feels as if it almost didn't happen
[44:05] Speaker 3: to her. So I think that's also a very difficult
[44:10] Speaker 3: journey for the survivors, is to be able to reconcile
[44:14] Speaker 3: the mind and the body. You know, the body keeps
[44:18] Speaker 3: the score or the body knows the abuse that it's
[44:21] Speaker 3: been through. But it is what makes this crime so
[44:25] Speaker 3: particularly cruel is the memory loss also associated with it
[44:31] Speaker 3: that you start second guessing yourself because you, in Zoe's words,
[44:35] Speaker 3: you know, how could she trust a man? How could
[44:38] Speaker 3: she build an entire life with a man who was
[44:43] Speaker 3: able to do this to her? And I think because
[44:47] Speaker 3: you then you find it hard to trust yourself because
[44:51] Speaker 3: you don't remember to then be faced with the police
[44:56] Speaker 3: who will maybe question what you're bringing to them, you know,
[45:02] Speaker 3: retraumatizers the survivor, because they are already in a very
[45:06] Speaker 3: fragile state of not being able to trust themselves because
[45:12] Speaker 3: again they have no memory of the abuse.
[45:17] Speaker 1: After the break we talk about why it's so difficult
[45:20] Speaker 1: for these women to get a conviction. We know that
[45:26] Speaker 1: trying to get a conviction in a rape case is hard,
[45:30] Speaker 1: full stop. Is it even harder in these kinds of instances.
[45:35] Speaker 1: I know we've talked about zoe Is she got a conviction,
[45:37] Speaker 1: Giselle got a conviction. But I feel like this would
[45:42] Speaker 1: be a very hard thing to prove.
[45:44] Speaker 3: It is because you know, many of these drugs they
[45:47] Speaker 3: leave the body within twelve hours, So first of all,
[45:50] Speaker 3: you need to be able to know that you've been drugged.
[45:53] Speaker 3: Go to the hospital, try and go and get a
[45:55] Speaker 3: drugs test whilst you still can. And then we're talking
[46:00] Speaker 3: about cases where the men filmed it, but in so
[46:03] Speaker 3: many cases they don't. And Jemma, since our investigation was
[46:09] Speaker 3: published aired, we have been inundated with messages from survivors
[46:14] Speaker 3: too in Australia who you know, are telling us I'm
[46:20] Speaker 3: pretty sure this has happened, but I have no videos,
[46:23] Speaker 3: no photos, I never.
[46:24] Speaker 2: Took a drugs test. Were separated now.
[46:27] Speaker 3: But when I look back at what happened, I remember
[46:30] Speaker 3: memory loss, I remember waking up with bruises that were there,
[46:34] Speaker 3: you know, that I couldn't explain. And so it's a
[46:39] Speaker 3: terrible puzzle for these women who are trying to put
[46:42] Speaker 3: it back together, and they'll always be this element of
[46:47] Speaker 3: doubt and there's no way that they can prove it.
[46:50] Speaker 3: So conviction state in incredibly hard to get and it's
[46:55] Speaker 3: a long road to justice. And with all of these
[46:57] Speaker 3: survivors who have been getting in touch, big majority of
[47:01] Speaker 3: them have said, you know, I went to the police,
[47:04] Speaker 3: but it was his word versus mine, because I just
[47:07] Speaker 3: didn't have any evidence to bring forward. And and that's
[47:12] Speaker 3: why it's, you know, really hard for those survivors to
[47:16] Speaker 3: move on with their lives.
[47:18] Speaker 1: I'm curious, as a journalist, before you started working in
[47:22] Speaker 1: this kind of world, you know, pre Gizelle, did you
[47:26] Speaker 1: have any idea that this this was a crime, that
[47:29] Speaker 1: this was happening. Because I feel maybe I'm being naive here,
[47:33] Speaker 1: but I before I heard about Jizelle's case, because I
[47:36] Speaker 1: was so shocked by that, I didn't know that this
[47:38] Speaker 1: was happening. And it's mind boggling to see how much
[47:42] Speaker 1: it's happening. Were you aware that this was something in
[47:45] Speaker 1: the zeitgeist before Gizelle.
[47:47] Speaker 3: I had no idea that this was such a pervasive crime,
[47:52] Speaker 3: and Gazelle Petico was it was an awakening. And the
[47:56] Speaker 3: more I cover, you know, thiss these cases, the more
[48:02] Speaker 3: their you know, they seem to pop up in different countries.
[48:09] Speaker 3: And I think the reason also that we're not speaking
[48:11] Speaker 3: about it enough is because even just you know, the
[48:15] Speaker 3: term drug facilitated sexual assault, I don't know if it is.
[48:22] Speaker 2: Really adequate enough to describe what's going on here.
[48:26] Speaker 3: In French, they have the word sawmi so shimik chemical submission,
[48:31] Speaker 3: and I think that is way more descriptive and accurate
[48:34] Speaker 3: because that is what the men here are trying to do.
[48:37] Speaker 3: They want the women to be completely within their control, right,
[48:44] Speaker 3: they want to have control over the women. They want
[48:48] Speaker 3: to be once again submitting these women to their will.
[48:55] Speaker 2: And I believe that this.
[48:59] Speaker 3: Kind of crime now that we're beginning to notice it,
[49:02] Speaker 3: Now that we're beginning to I guess.
[49:05] Speaker 2: You know, we're awake where where we're.
[49:08] Speaker 3: Looking into it, we are covering it more. We're not
[49:13] Speaker 3: just dismissing this as, oh, this is another case of
[49:16] Speaker 3: domestic abuse, because it is domestic abuse, but it's a
[49:20] Speaker 3: very specific.
[49:22] Speaker 2: Type of domestic abuse.
[49:25] Speaker 3: And I go back to dominate perlicosis Albeliko being the
[49:29] Speaker 3: start the beginning, and I think once you kind of
[49:34] Speaker 3: have your eyes open to it, you will begin noticing
[49:37] Speaker 3: these cases a lot more. And we've been speaking with
[49:41] Speaker 3: UK lawmakers in fact to look at laws to see,
[49:47] Speaker 3: you know, and piece here are looking into are they
[49:51] Speaker 3: adequate enough? Are the laws out there fit to deal
[49:55] Speaker 3: with this type of emerging crime.
[49:57] Speaker 2: Wasn't there a.
[49:57] Speaker 1: Recent law change in the EU to kind of help
[50:03] Speaker 1: put kind of like boundaries around what this was so
[50:06] Speaker 1: that we could then.
[50:07] Speaker 2: Lead to more convictions. Is that helping at all? Yes, exactly.
[50:11] Speaker 3: So that was all about you know, consent and yes
[50:14] Speaker 3: means yes rather than no means no, So it really
[50:18] Speaker 3: brings the consent issue first at the front of this
[50:23] Speaker 3: and I think that it's a great first step. But
[50:27] Speaker 3: as you and I were just saying, Gemma, you know,
[50:31] Speaker 3: proving a rape case in court does remain really difficult
[50:35] Speaker 3: and the overall conviction you know.
[50:37] Speaker 2: Rate remains incredibly low.
[50:40] Speaker 3: So this is a great first step, but I think
[50:42] Speaker 3: it also goes to how do we better form the police,
[50:47] Speaker 3: How do we better form to deal with these types
[50:50] Speaker 3: of you know, drug facilitated assault rape, How do we
[50:53] Speaker 3: better train the medical community. A lot of the survivors,
[50:59] Speaker 3: they believed that there was something wrong with them, much
[51:02] Speaker 3: like Dozelle Pelico. They began having serious memory loss. Zoe
[51:06] Speaker 3: thought she has some kind of neurological disorder. But every
[51:10] Speaker 3: time they would go and visit the doctor, they would
[51:12] Speaker 3: go with their husband, with their partner, who was able
[51:16] Speaker 3: to then manipulate the conversation and dismiss what the partner
[51:21] Speaker 3: was saying, Oh, you've been under a lot of stress, safetly, darling,
[51:24] Speaker 3: it's probably that, or you know, maybe it's the pressure
[51:27] Speaker 3: that you're feeling at work. And again, like if the
[51:30] Speaker 3: medical community, I think we're more aware of this type
[51:33] Speaker 3: of crime that perhaps next time they would ask the
[51:36] Speaker 3: husband to you know, kindly leave the room and are
[51:39] Speaker 3: able to ask these women better questions to be able
[51:42] Speaker 3: to ascertain whether or not they are in fact being drugged.
[51:47] Speaker 3: So I think, you know, quaite first step when it
[51:50] Speaker 3: comes to saying yes means yes.
[51:54] Speaker 2: But more needs to be done when tackling this specific I.
[52:00] Speaker 1: Think the comparison I can think of in Australia is
[52:03] Speaker 1: in the last few years we got coercive control laws. Great,
[52:08] Speaker 1: However it doesn't make it easier to prove coercive control
[52:12] Speaker 1: once you're in the court, so it's like it looked great,
[52:16] Speaker 1: but then when you're actually in the system trying to
[52:19] Speaker 1: prove it with that kind of allegation, you know, there's
[52:23] Speaker 1: the disconnect.
[52:25] Speaker 3: And for a lot of these survivors, like Zoe, like Gazelle,
[52:30] Speaker 3: once set in that courtroom and you've got lawyers that
[52:34] Speaker 3: are asking you questions like, well, you are a bit
[52:37] Speaker 3: of an exhibitionist, aren't you?
[52:39] Speaker 2: You know, Gazelle or.
[52:41] Speaker 3: Zoe will use someone who was into swinging. Your sex
[52:45] Speaker 3: life is suddenly being looked into, you know, by its
[52:50] Speaker 3: being brought out into the public, and you're being asked
[52:55] Speaker 3: questions that again are incredibly re traumatizing. And Zoe said,
[53:01] Speaker 3: you know, if she knew how hard and how difficult
[53:04] Speaker 3: and the kind of question she was going to have
[53:06] Speaker 3: to take during the trial, if she had known all
[53:09] Speaker 3: of that, maybe she wouldn't.
[53:11] Speaker 2: Have had the courage to go through with it. And again,
[53:14] Speaker 2: anybody watching.
[53:15] Speaker 3: The Shehazelle Pellico trial, any survivor watching that would probably
[53:18] Speaker 3: leave thinking, there is no way I want to put
[53:20] Speaker 3: myself through that kind of you know, scrutiny and the
[53:25] Speaker 3: types of questions that she had to feeld. So you know,
[53:29] Speaker 3: I would add, actually onto the better training, that maybe
[53:33] Speaker 3: we need to talk more about how these cases are
[53:36] Speaker 3: handled in the courtrooms.
[53:38] Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I think that's something I keep coming
[53:40] Speaker 1: up again and again and again when I talk to
[53:43] Speaker 1: victim survivors is you know, the incident is horrific, and
[53:46] Speaker 1: then they go to court and they're very traumatized and
[53:48] Speaker 1: it's once again horrific. So it's like, we just need
[53:53] Speaker 1: to do better across the board. And that's a very
[53:55] Speaker 1: sweeping statement, but it's like, no, no, no, we need to
[53:58] Speaker 1: change this because how do we expect these women to
[54:01] Speaker 1: walk into a courtroom and be completely torn apart by
[54:06] Speaker 1: a cross examination? Like you said, like, they're not going
[54:09] Speaker 1: to want to do it.
[54:10] Speaker 2: They're not going to want to do it. And bringing
[54:12] Speaker 2: it back to.
[54:14] Speaker 3: The emotional context, the fact that a lot of these
[54:17] Speaker 3: women are in relationships or married or have children, and
[54:21] Speaker 3: taking the children away for example, like that is a
[54:25] Speaker 3: pressure point that I think for most women would be
[54:28] Speaker 3: too much to bear. And it goes again to you know,
[54:32] Speaker 3: speaking about how cruel this crime can be.
[54:37] Speaker 2: That is also a massive part.
[54:38] Speaker 3: Of it is like how can you weaponize the children
[54:42] Speaker 3: or how can you? And this is why this crime
[54:44] Speaker 3: is under reported, Jemma, because you know, in some cases
[54:48] Speaker 3: women will look at what life will be like without
[54:52] Speaker 3: the husband and they think, well, financially, I just won't
[54:54] Speaker 3: be able to bear it.
[54:55] Speaker 2: I'll lose the house.
[54:58] Speaker 3: How the kids, you know, survive if now the main
[55:02] Speaker 3: breadwinner has gone.
[55:04] Speaker 2: And again it.
[55:06] Speaker 3: Just goes to show why it is so hard in
[55:09] Speaker 3: some of these cases for the women to come forward
[55:12] Speaker 3: and press charges because they worry about the financial aspect,
[55:16] Speaker 3: they worry about keeping the children, and all of these
[55:19] Speaker 3: kind of circumstances come together and make them feel like
[55:23] Speaker 3: there is just no road possible and that they're just
[55:27] Speaker 3: going to have to handle this by themselves.
[55:31] Speaker 1: In positive news, Giselle has changed that a bit in
[55:37] Speaker 1: kind of giving survivors and victims, I guess the fire
[55:42] Speaker 1: and their belly to fight because they look at her
[55:44] Speaker 1: and how strong she is, and she has become a
[55:46] Speaker 1: bit of an icon in that kind of survivor world
[55:50] Speaker 1: because of how incredible she is. I know that you
[55:53] Speaker 1: spoke to her after this investigation and kind of showed
[55:57] Speaker 1: her all the women.
[55:58] Speaker 2: How did she react to that?
[56:00] Speaker 1: Seeing all these women coming forward after she had.
[56:03] Speaker 3: It was a really emotional moment for Gazelle Palico when
[56:07] Speaker 3: I was able to share some of the messages that
[56:10] Speaker 3: Zoe and Amanda had for her. I think Gazelle, she's
[56:15] Speaker 3: such a humble person, and for her to listen to
[56:22] Speaker 3: how she's affected, you know, how she's impacted these women
[56:25] Speaker 3: and the courage she's given them, I think is you know,
[56:29] Speaker 3: it was a really big moment for her. And I
[56:33] Speaker 3: will add now you know there's Jozelle Pelico out there now,
[56:36] Speaker 3: but there is also Amanda and Zoe now you know,
[56:39] Speaker 3: since they have come forward, they started it's been one
[56:43] Speaker 3: of the most beautiful things has come out of this
[56:45] Speaker 3: investigation is they've started a campaign together again to raise
[56:50] Speaker 3: awareness and to essentially have a fund now to help
[56:54] Speaker 3: women who are wanting to leave their husbands who have
[56:58] Speaker 3: just discovered that they've been sexually abused drugs, sexually abused
[57:02] Speaker 3: by the by their partners. And you know, they have
[57:06] Speaker 3: been raising awareness, they have been speaking with other survivors,
[57:12] Speaker 3: giving them, you know, trying to help them navigate this
[57:16] Speaker 3: very difficult time for a lot of the survivors and
[57:18] Speaker 3: so you know, taking a step back and looking at
[57:22] Speaker 3: what Chazelle has done in terms of freeing women, you know,
[57:29] Speaker 3: empowering women to come forward is such a huge step
[57:35] Speaker 3: in trying to fight this problem because the more women speak,
[57:40] Speaker 3: the more women come forward, there isn't as much room for.
[57:44] Speaker 2: Men to hide.
[57:46] Speaker 3: And and just seeing you know, all of those messages
[57:51] Speaker 3: that we've been receiving on on you know, in our social.
[57:55] Speaker 2: Media or over email, women are ready.
[58:01] Speaker 3: They're ready to now come together and speak up and
[58:07] Speaker 3: waive their right to anonymity and make sure that if
[58:12] Speaker 3: there are any other survivors out there, none of them
[58:15] Speaker 3: wanted to be part of the sorority, but there is
[58:17] Speaker 3: a sorority now and they're very close. Uh, you know,
[58:21] Speaker 3: there's that they're working together, and it is just such
[58:26] Speaker 3: a positive thing that has come from this investigation.
[58:30] Speaker 2: And I would say, you know, that's one of three things.
[58:32] Speaker 3: The other two is piuts are of course, you know,
[58:35] Speaker 3: being arrested and admitting.
[58:37] Speaker 2: To the charges.
[58:37] Speaker 3: And then the third one is yes, motherless is back up.
[58:41] Speaker 3: But all of those search terms you know, have been banned.
[58:44] Speaker 3: A quick kind of cursory look at the website shows
[58:47] Speaker 3: that some of the illegal content has been taken down.
[58:52] Speaker 2: So at least they know people are watching.
[58:54] Speaker 3: Now, people are are there, they're looking, and they need
[58:57] Speaker 3: to do better. But there are sad other websites out there, Gemma,
[59:02] Speaker 3: where you know, it's the world Wild Wist, and there's
[59:06] Speaker 3: still all this content living on there and easily accessible.
[59:08] Speaker 3: So it's not There's still a lot to be done
[59:11] Speaker 3: on that front.
[59:13] Speaker 2: And I think.
[59:16] Speaker 1: It's amazing that all these women are coming forward, but
[59:18] Speaker 1: I can't keep thinking. I keep thinking, but what about
[59:20] Speaker 1: the men? You know, it's not all men. I'm married
[59:23] Speaker 1: to a man. I know lots of good men, but
[59:25] Speaker 1: it is way too many men. And what do we
[59:28] Speaker 1: do with this information? As women? We know that all
[59:32] Speaker 1: of these men in the world are raping their wives
[59:37] Speaker 1: and drugging their wives and putting content on these websites.
[59:39] Speaker 1: And it's like, how do we morally grapple with the
[59:42] Speaker 1: fact that this is happening in our world and our society.
[59:45] Speaker 1: How do we raise our boys to not kind.
[59:48] Speaker 2: Of contribute to this.
[59:50] Speaker 1: It's a really hard kind of thing to get your
[59:55] Speaker 1: head around.
[59:57] Speaker 3: It's so hard, and I can't help but think that
[1:00:02] Speaker 3: the porn industry that just needs to be way more
[1:00:06] Speaker 3: scrutiny because as you know, one lawmaker was saying the
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: other day, you can be sure that if these websites,
[1:00:15] Speaker 3: if these porn sites, they were tutorials about how to
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: make a bomb or you know, how to become a terrorist,
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: this content would be taken down in seconds.
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: The website would be geo blocked.
[1:00:26] Speaker 3: We need to take sexual violence towards women that seriously,
[1:00:32] Speaker 3: because it is just this endless cycle of violence that
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: will keep perpetuating itself. And the more this has proven,
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: we have the statistics, this is the stuff we know.
[1:00:44] Speaker 3: The more men are exposed to this kind of extreme
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: content that normalizes it, that desensitizes the men, the more
[1:00:53] Speaker 3: they are likely to act upon it. Dominic Pellico essentially
[1:00:57] Speaker 3: used cocoa like a a newspaper in which he put
[1:01:02] Speaker 3: an ad you know, this is what I'm doing to
[1:01:05] Speaker 3: my wife, who would like to come and do it too.
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: And if it wasn't for that website, there is no
[1:01:12] Speaker 3: way he would have been able to recruit that, you know,
[1:01:15] Speaker 3: over seventy men. So while websites argue that they are
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: not publishers, all they're doing is hosting this content and
[1:01:23] Speaker 3: they can't be made responsible for the you know, the
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: illegal videos that users are uploading. It makes it hard
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: when you are now grading your own homework, because that's
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: what happens, for example, in the case of Motherlis is
[1:01:39] Speaker 3: that they are responsible for taking down the content, and
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: they are responsible for saying what's illegal and what's illegal. So,
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: you know, how do we stop this problem? Well, I
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: think you know, laws when it comes to moderating these sites,
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: making sure that extreme content is just not available at
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: all because it is unlawful. It shouldn't exist anywhere, and
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: I think that will be a great first step in
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: trying to you know, combat this issue.
[1:02:11] Speaker 1: Well hopefully, Giselle, And now your investigation is kind of
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: the wake up call that we need as a society,
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: as a world to really start taking this more seriously.
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: I hope so. And we're working on a second investigation
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: right now.
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: Where there are you know, ton more survivors, and we
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: also look into how hard it is for law enforcement
[1:02:34] Speaker 3: to try and keep track of these sides, try and
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: keep track of what's being uploaded there and once they
[1:02:40] Speaker 3: see maybe users sharing this kind of content, you know,
[1:02:44] Speaker 3: they don't have endless resources to speak with men twenty
[1:02:48] Speaker 3: four seven and try and find out where they live, who.
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: They are it is. It is hard for law.
[1:02:55] Speaker 3: Enforcement to keep up with these crimes. But I do
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: hope that now men are also more aware of this,
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: that they will reach out to one another, that they
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: will speak to one another.
[1:03:06] Speaker 2: If men are.
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: Out there feeling like they you know, can't be honest
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: with men in the real world, which is why they're
[1:03:13] Speaker 3: being pushed, you know, to these to this kind of
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: dark underworld. There needs to be more communication between men,
[1:03:23] Speaker 3: and we don't want this kind of content to obviously
[1:03:26] Speaker 3: be pushed into you know, onto the dark neck. But
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: at the same time, because it's so readily available, that's
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: what makes it, you know, so consumable by the masses.
[1:03:39] Speaker 3: So I think, you know, trying to make these platforms
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: just clearing up the content, making it harder to come
[1:03:47] Speaker 3: across it. Having men speak to one another, having men
[1:03:51] Speaker 3: you know, if you see something, say something, this could
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: could help.
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: But it's it's just it's so hard, and.
[1:03:59] Speaker 3: There'll be people who are out there who are way
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: more eloquent on the subject matter than us. But just
[1:04:05] Speaker 3: from where we've been sitting, what we have uncovered, if
[1:04:08] Speaker 3: there's one thing I've taken away from this is that
[1:04:11] Speaker 3: this is a growing phenomenon, and it is going to
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: get worse if we don't tackle it quickly.
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: Thank you to Saskia for joining us on this episode today.
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: You can find out more about Saskia's CNN investigation and
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: her other work at the links in our show notes.
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating
[1:04:33] Speaker 1: and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It really helps
[1:04:37] Speaker 1: others find the show. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: be back next week with another true crime conversation. We've
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