Website used by husband who recruited 83 men to rape his unconscious wife shut down

An unmoderated chat room reportedly used by a French man to recruit 83 men to rape his unconscious wife has been shut down, following inquiries from ITV News.

The online forum, which was registered in Guernsey, had reportedly hampered French Police investigations into the sale of illegal substances, paedophilia and racism due to the fact messages disappeared a few hours after they were sent.

The Telegraph previously reported that authorities in France, where the site is most popular, were unable to take action against the site, whose domain was registered in the bailiwick.

However, Guernsey Police have today told ITV News that they never received a request from the French authorities to have the site shut down, and were not previously aware of its existence.

A national newspaper, Le Monde, claimed the website was used by a French man, Dominique P, to recruit 83 men who raped his unconscious wife on numerous occasions over a 10-year period.

One of the chat rooms, called "à son insu" [without her knowing], is used by members to discuss performing sexual acts on non-consenting partners, often sharing photos or videos of the abuse.

Dominique was arrested in 2020 after being caught filming up the skirts of customers in a supermarket, leading to French Police officers searching his home near Avignon and uncovering evidence of the abuse.

Previous reports stated the French Police claimed the site was "hard to shut down" due to it being domiciled in Guernsey.

But research from ITV News has revealed that although the website had been registered using a .gg web address, the site was still being run and managed in France.

Where are websites based?

While the last bit of a website address can be used as a geographic identifier - like .gg for Guernsey, or .uk for the United Kingdom - the servers which host a website, storing data for it, could be located anywhere.

In this case, the illegal site was originally registered using a .fr address, and when authorities in France moved to take action against the people operating it, a new .gg domain was set up directing users to the original servers.

While web addresses ending in .com or .co.uk can be registered from thousands of companies online, only a select few registrars are allowed to sell .gg addresses.

Some jurisdictions impose tight restrictions on how a location's top-level domain - .gg or similar - can be used, however, Guernsey does not.

ITV News managed to track down the local company which registered the domain.

It said it did so in good faith and as soon as it found the domain was being used for criminal purposes, it has been working closely with Guernsey Police.

A spokesperson for the force confirmed that following questions from ITV News, the website will be taken offline: "Guernsey Police can confirm we have not, based on a review of our records, received any contact from the French authorities about this matter, however after being made aware this morning swift action has been taken.

"It has been established that the website is hosted in Europe but has a Guernsey-registered domain, the future use of which will be denied.”

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