Twenty-five years jail for banker who pimped his girlfriend to 500 men

A French bank manager received a 25-year prison sentence for seven years of violent and humiliating abuse of his girlfriend. The court heard that he forced her to perform degrading sexual acts, including assaults using belts, cutting boards, electrical cables, and strangulation. He compelled her into prostitution from 2015 to 2021 and required her to keep a list of clients, with her stopping at 487 men. The abuse included forcing her to perform a sex act on a truck driver on the day she was discharged after giving birth. The victim described psychological control, including deliberate sleep deprivation and restrictions on her daily life, while remaining conscious during assaults.

"Details of the violent and perverted abuse that Laetitia R suffered during her relationship with Guillaume Bucci (51) were aired in court hearings this week after she rejected his defence lawyers' request for a closed-door trial. Laetitia (42) said the decision was inspired by Gisele Pelicot, who waived her right to anonymity in her 2024 rape trial, saying "shame must change sides" and becoming a feminist icon."

"The court in Digne-les-Bains, in south-west France, was told Bucci forced Laetitia to engage in degrading, violent and humiliating acts throughout their relationship between 2015 and 2022. "Little by little, I felt like I was dying inside. With each practice imposed, there was a part of me that broke permanently," the mother of three, who was in tears, told the court. "I didn't know how to get out of it. I thought to myself: If I do, maybe it will strike me less.""

"Along with regular assaults that involved belts, cutting boards, electrical cables and strangulation, Bucci forced his victim into prostitution between 2015-2021 and made her keep a list of the clients. Laetitia said she stopped counting at 487 men. On the day she was discharged from the hospital after giving birth to their daughter in 2017, Bucci forced her to perform a sex act on a truck driver."

"Unlike Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his wife while she was raped, Laetitia's abuser kept her conscious on purpose, she told a news programme before the trial. "He said I needed to realise what was happening to me," she said. "I remember everything." The psychological abuse was equally extreme, the court was told. Bucci kept her deliberately sleep-deprived, allowing her one full night of rest every 10 days, decided what time she got up and went to bed, forbade her to wear und"

Read at Irish Independent