🔥 Truth Watch: Missing Forensic Evidence Threatens Trial of Dominique Pelicot

This report comes from The Justice Gap on 2025-07-22 11:56:00 by Samantha Dulieu.

The trial of Dominique Pelicot—convicted rapist and prime suspect in the 1991 murder of 23-year-old Sophie Narme—is now in jeopardy due to missing forensic evidence that was believed to be stored in a Paris courthouse.

Narme was raped and strangled in her apartment, and prosecutors had hoped that advances in DNA technology could finally link Pelicot to the crime. However, the clothing believed to hold crucial forensic traces has reportedly been lost by police.

Pelicot is currently serving a 20-year sentence for the prolonged and horrific abuse of his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, whom he drugged and subjected to repeated sexual assaults by dozens of strangers he invited into their home.

He denies involvement in Narme’s murder but is also under investigation for a 1999 sexual assault in Paris, where he admitted to assault but not rape. Due to a legal technicality, if the evidence in the Narme case cannot be recovered, the 1999 case may also be dropped.

This case highlights a broader crisis in forensic evidence management. A joint investigation by the BBC and the University of Leicester revealed that in the UK, thousands of prosecutions have collapsed due to lost or missing forensic material.

Between 2020 and 2024, over 30,000 cases—including 70 homicides and 554 sexual offences—failed to result in convictions due to missing evidence. The Metropolitan Police alone saw 4.6% of cases dropped for this reason.

Dennis Eady, a leading investigator into miscarriages of justice, told the Westminster Commission on Forensic Science that “disappearing material” is now a more serious issue than disclosure failures.

He cited examples of flood-damaged police storage and missing CCTV footage, including the case of Roger Kearney, who continues to protest his innocence from prison after key evidence in his case was lost.

The Law Commission has called for urgent reform, recommending a national forensic archiving framework and stronger legal requirements for evidence preservation. Without systemic change, victims and defendants alike remain vulnerable to the consequences of institutional neglect.

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