This article references domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape.
The trial of Dominique Pélicot – who admits to drugging, raping, and filming his then-wife, Gisèle Pélicot – has sent shock waves throughout the world. But for Juliana Terlizzi, a business owner and campaigner, the news has affected her more than most.
In 2020, Juliana was drugged, raped, and filmed by her then-partner Hubert Greliak. Despite the evidence against him, it took two years before he was found guilty and sent to prison. During this time, Juliana suffered multiple indignities at the hands of the English justice system, from the traumatic cross-examination she endured at trial to the fact she must pay £7500 if she wants to access the court transcripts.
Juliana is still fighting for justice. This is her story…
In July 2018, Juliana Terlizzi was living in her dream city with her dream job. Then, aged 31, she moved from Brazil to London to focus on building her food travel business. “I was so focused on making my business work,” she tells me over Zoom. “Little did I know that a few months later, I would meet a new partner. And that he would derail my whole life.”
Juliana met Hubert Greliak in a pub in Soho. “He was the one who approached me,” she says. “I was ready to leave. I didn't want to be rude, so I talked to him. I ended up giving him my number, even though he had no battery on his phone. He said he would remember it by heart. I thought he was never going to remember it, but he did.”
They began dating in January 2019, after Greliak convinced Juliana to “give it a try”. The relationship was torrid from the start. “He would call me in the middle of the night saying that he needed help, that he was drunk. He would ask me for money, and I just felt really bad for him. He made me believe that I could help him.”
Juliana tells me that whenever she tried to break up with Greliak, he would convince her to give him another chance. “He was a master manipulator,” she explains. “I would block him. He would get another number. He would show up at my house. It was pretty much harassment to the point where he isolated me from my friends.”
Eventually, in December 2019, Greliak moved in with Juliana. While she hoped letting him move in would calm their relationship, things got dramatically worse.
He recorded a video of Juliana after giving her “a huge amount” of ketamine. “I didn't even know what ketamine was at the time,” she reflects.
“In the video, he says: 'You're in a state where someone could rob you or rape you and you wouldn't even know,’" Juliana tells me. “He thought it was funny to ‘torture’ me by telling me to wake up as I was late for a meeting – I would wake up terrified and he laughed saying, ‘I found the things your body is afraid of’.
“The next morning, he recorded himself assaulting me; then he recorded himself waking me up and showing me the video to see my reaction,” says Juliana. She had no memory of the assault – largely due to the ketamine in her system and the fact that she was asleep. The video remained on her computer, which Greliak used to film the assault, unwatched.
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A month later, Juliana discovered that Greliak had stolen £300 from her PayPal account. This marked a turning point. “It hit me that he wasn't a good person. I couldn't trust him,” she says, adding, “abusers operate in a way where they're very slow in their acts… you can't notice this until you're entrapped.”
After that, Juliana kicked Greliak out of her apartment. Later the same night, she says, he messaged her asking for her dad's mobile number under the guise of wanting to send him a video for his 80th birthday. “That's when I remembered there was a video,” she says. “I found it on my computer. I was in complete shock. I knew he was blackmailing me. He never even met or spoke with my father. He knew I was very close to him.”
The video was eight minutes long. “I am unconscious in it," Juliana explains. “I'm tied up. You can hear him say in the video, ‘I'm completely raping you while you're asleep and unconscious and making a video of it as well’.”
Greliak was arrested and charged with sexual assault on the 8th of March 2020, which is his birthday and also, as Juliania notes, International Women's Day. “Poetic justice, I guess,” she says.
Juliana's relief was fleeting. A month after his arrest, Greliak was bailed. “I'd thought that when he was arrested, I could move on with my life. But when he was bailed, I had to move to another apartment; I didn't feel safe where I was.”
Greliak was arrested twice for breaching his bail conditions.
In 2021, during the lead-up to and during Greliak's trial, Juliana was highly distressed. While he'd initially been charged with sexual assault by digital penetration, she later discovered that he'd also raped her.
“I was preparing to write my victim's personal statement and was reviewing all the videos. In one of the videos, he admitted to raping me as well as the sexual assault. He laughed as he described how I woke up during it. In the video, he looks for the video of the rape to play it to me but realises he must've not recorded it. That's when I realised he had, in fact, raped me, and I sent the video evidence to the police.
“Had I not been reviewing the videos myself, he would've not been charged with rape.”
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“I wasn't just fighting for justice,” Juliana says. “I was fighting the police and the CPS, and trying to keep myself safe at the same time – without going crazy.”
The trial was arranged to take place over four days; it lasted ten. Juliana's first face-to-face meeting with the trial prosecutor was on the day she testified. The prosecutor insisted that Juliana give evidence from behind a screen. “I told her I don't want a screen," reflects Juliana. “I don't want to feel like I'm a coward. I want to be able to look him in the eye after everything that he's done.”
As part of the trial, Juliana's testimony was questioned by Greliak's defence lawyer. “I was humiliated a thousand times […] She said, ‘I've seen all the sex videos that you have. You like sex… you have a lot of sex’," Juliana recalls. “And my response to her was, ‘Yes, I do like sex, but does that mean that I get to be raped by my boyfriend?’” The defence lawyer then advised her to answer only ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Throughout the trial, Greliak could walk around the court building as he pleased. “He was walking the same hallways as I was. If I went out for a cigarette, he would come after me. And even though he couldn't speak to me, he would beg with his eyes for me to speak to him. He was still trying to convince me to give up and change my mind.”
Greliak was found guilty of rape, sexual assault, and theft in January 2022. His bail was immediately revoked.
At the sentencing hearing, Juliana remembers Greliak's defence lawyer making more hurtful comments. “She said, ‘Oh, well, look at Juliana. She's fine. She doesn't have post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). She was asleep. So, she has no recollection of what happened. So there was no trauma’.”
Juliana has considered making a complaint against the defence barrister in question, but she doesn't have access to the court transcripts, which she'd need to build a case. When Juliana requested the transcripts, she was quoted £7,500. “[The defence] gets to humiliate me, and there is no accountability,” Juliana reflects.
Greliak was sentenced to 18 years in prison – two years after Juliana had first reported him to the police.
I couldn’t look sexy because then the jury might think I’d been asking for it. I couldn’t look too powerful because then I wouldn’t look like a victim.
In September this year, Juliana – and the rest of the world – watched in horror as the trial of Dominique Pélicot began in France. Pélicot has pleaded guilty to drugging, raping, and filming his wife, Gisèle Pélicot, and inviting more than 80 men to rape her over the course of a decade. Like Juliana, Gisèle has waived her right to anonymity.
“It wasn't easy to accept that I may never fully know what happened off-camera. I can only imagine how hard it has been for Gisèle,” says Juliana.
“When I reported him, it was always my plan to waive my anonymity and expose my rapist to protect other women. Like Gisèle, I believe that ‘Shame must change sides’. I never accepted any of the shame as it wasn't mine to carry.”
Juliana also noticed similarities between her case and how Gisèle has been treated in the justice system.
"It's shocking to me that when the videos [of Gisèle] were shown in court, she would've been in court with her [alleged] rapists in the same room. During my trial, when the videos were shown, the judge didn't even clear the public gallery. It was bad enough that barristers, police, the jury and my rapist were seeing it. There was no need for random people to see the video – especially because they had no involvement in the case.
“People need to understand how much of a sacrifice it is to expose yourself to get justice. Victims shouldn't have to pay that price.”
Since Greliak was sentenced, Juliana has worked closely with the Victims Commissioner of London, Claire Waxman, and Open Justice For All to campaign for full transcripts and audio recordings of Crown Court hearings to be freely available on request. Thanks to their efforts, the previous government launched a one-year pilot scheme where victims of sexual violence can apply to get free transcripts of the Judge's sentencing remarks from their trial.
“I want women to feel empowered,” says Juliana. “I want women to know that they should fight for justice – as hard as it is – and they shouldn't have to do it alone.
“The protests all over France showed that Gisèle is not alone. Every victim deserves to have that support. Speaking out is healing, whether it's speaking to someone you trust, authorities or other survivors. It's the only way out.”
For more information about reporting and recovering from rape and sexual abuse, you can contact Rape Crisis on 0808 500 2222.
If you have been sexually assaulted, you can find your nearest Sexual Assault Referral Centre here. You can also find support at your local GP, voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, and Victim Support, and you can report it to the police (if you choose) here.
For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
