Paedophile surgeon who ‘raped 300 youngsters together with some below anaesthetic’ admits he has dedicated ‘hideous acts’ – in France’s largest ever child-sex trial
A surgeon accused of sexually abusing hundreds of patients yesterday said he had committed ‘hideous acts’ on the first day of a trial set to stun France.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, is charged with assaulting or raping 299 boys and girls over three decades. Many were patients under anaesthetic following surgical procedures at hospitals across France where Le Scouarnec worked.
The average age of the alleged victims was just 11.
In what has been described as France’s largest-ever paedophile trial, dozens of the surgeon’s alleged victims – now adults and seeing him for the first time since they were abused – watched via a video link as the white-haired, bespectacled man in the dock was asked by Judge Aude Buresi if wanted to make any comment at the end of the first day’s proceedings.
In response, Le Scouarnec, who is already serving a 15-year prison term after he was convicted of assaulting his six-year-old neighbour, a four-year-old patient and two nieces in 2020, appeared to admit to many of his crimes.
‘I sympathise with the suffering of the victims concerning acts I admitted during my interrogations,’ he said.
His lawyer, Maxime Tessier, had earlier told the court in Vannes, in the Britanny region of France, that the surgeon ‘admits responsibility for a vast majority of the acts.’
Le Scouarnec added that he was ‘perfectly aware that these wounds cannot be erased or healed’.
Joel Le Scouarnec, now 74, in the courtroom. He is accused of raping or abusing 299 people, mostly child patients (court sketch)
Joel Le Scouarnec (pictured) is accused of the sexual abuse of at least 299 boys and girls
The home of Le Scouarnec in Jonzac, a village in south west France, close to the world-famous brandy-producing region of Cognac
‘I swear to the victims I will assume the consequences for my actions,’ he said.
Under French law, for serious crimes it is for the prosecution to prove guilt and for judges to rule on guilt and sentence.
The trial is the second major sexual abuse case to rock France in a matter of months, after 51 men were convicted in December of raping or assaulting Gisele Pelicot at the behest of her husband, Dominique.
The true scale of Le Scouarnec’s alleged offending only became clear in 2017 when the six-year-old daughter of his next-door neighbours told her parents that ‘the man with a crown of white hair’ had molested her over their shared garden fence.
After they contacted police, a raid on his property in the small town of Jonzac, south-west France, revealed 300,000 photos and videos depicting child abuse.
Officers also found both handwritten and digital diaries containing meticulous accounts of his assaults on boys and girls including the names of victims, dates and descriptions of the attacks going back to the 1980s.
Police also discovered a collection of life-sized dolls under the parquet flooring of the house which Le Scouarnec, a specialist abdominal surgeon, was using for his own sexual gratification. In his diaries he professed his love for the dolls.
Le Scouarnec’s lawyer Maxime Tessier, told the court in Vannes, in the Britanny region of France, that the surgeon ‘admits responsibility for a vast majority of the acts’
Le Scouarnec’s actions are said to have driven patients to suicide, sparked drug and alcohol dependency in others and destroyed relationships
Le Scouarnec secured a full-time post in Jonzac in 2008
In other notes, Le Scouarnec wrote: ‘I am a paedophile and I always will be’. It is also believed that at one stage his then-wife, Marie-France, discovered her husband’s sordid activities. In 1997, Le Scouarnec wrote: ‘It has been nine months since she discovered that I am a paedophile’.
Following the 2017 discovery, police tracked down hundreds of alleged victims.
They found some had been driven to suicide; suffered from alcohol and drug addiction or had difficulties forming relationships.
It has emerged that Le Scouarnec’s offending could have been stopped when he was convicted in 2005 of possession of child pornography following a sting launched by America’s FBI.
However he was instead given a four-month suspended sentence and later took up a full-time hospital post in Jonzac, where he continued practising – and allegedly abusing patients – until 2017.
In 2006, Le Scouarnec was reported to the L’Ordre des Médecins (The Order of Physicians) – France’s professional body for doctors – when a colleague discovered his criminal conviction, but no action was taken.
Ahead of the trial’s opening at the Morbihan Criminal Court in Vannes yesterday, angry French doctors and victims of Le Scouarnec described an ‘omerta’ in reporting medical professionals which allowed the doctor to continue abusing large numbers of children even after his conviction.
Amelie Leveque, now 42, was operated on by Le Scouarnec in 1991. The alleged abuse she suffered was detailed in one of his diaries
During a rally, signs were help up reading: ‘Stop the code of silence.’
GP Annick Plou said: ‘We have known about him for some years. What is terrible is that we and other doctors in France are prohibited by law from criticising our colleagues in any way.’
Amelie Leveque, now 42, was operated on by Le Scouarnec in 1991. The alleged abuse she suffered was detailed in one of his diaries. ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,’ she said, as the trial got underway.
Le Scouarnec’s alleged offending is detailed in a 745-page indictment. He is accused of assaulting 158 men and 141 women between 1989 and 2014.
He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. French law does not allow sentences to be added together even when there are multiple victims.
The trial is expected to last until June.
