An associate of Frenchman Dominique Pelicot, who for a nearly a decade drugged his wife and invited dozens of men to rape her, admitted to copycat abuse of his own partner on Wednesday, blaming his mentor and a troubled childhood.

The mayor of a French town making headlines for the trial of dozens of men accused of rapes that occurred there for almost a decade has apologized for comments that appeared to downplay the case.

One of dozens of men accused of raping a Frenchwoman drugged unconscious by her husband told a court Thursday he realised something was wrong during their encounter that he now