A former surgeon accused of raping or assaulting hundreds of young patients is to go on trial on Monday in France’s biggest child abuse case.
The trial of Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, raises awkward questions for the French authorities, who allowed him to continue treating children despite an FBI warning that he had downloaded images of child abuse.
He was given a suspended four-month prison sentence after being convicted of possessing images of child sexual abuse in 2005. He continued practising as a surgeon, often operating on children and managing their aftercare.
The clinician, who lived in the small town of Jonzac, western France, is charged with assaulting or raping 299 children, most of whom were his patients, between 1989 and 2014.
He is accused of 300 separate offences — 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults. Many were allegedly committed while the victims were under anaesthetic. He has admitted some charges but not all.
The trial in the town of Vannes in Morbihan, Brittany, will only be opened to the public and media if all the alleged victims waive their right to anonymity.
Years of investigations followed police searches of Le Scouarnec’s home in which they found more than 300,000 images of child abuse, child-sized sex dolls and hundreds of notebooks and diaries.
In them, he described assaults in detail, referring to the alleged victims with terms of endearment such as “dear” or “darling”.
Le Scouarnec’s trial begins on Monday at the court in Vannes
STEPHANE MAHE/REUTERS
The diaries appeared to show that he sometimes assaulted several children in a single day but initially he insisted that they only chronicled his “fantasies” rather than real acts of abuse. Every year, however, on his birthday, he entered his age and wrote: “I am a paedophile and I am proud of it.”
Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 of raping the six-year-old daughter of his next-door neighbours, and one of his nieces, now in her 30s. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting another of his nieces and a young patient.
He was arrested in 2017 after the six-year-old told her parents what had happened and they reported it to the police.
The average age of his alleged victims was 11, and there were almost equal numbers of boys and girls. He is accused of being the most prolific child abuser to face justice in France, and possibly Europe.
Some of his former patients, who are now all adults, have recalled him touching them under the guise of medical examinations, sometimes in the presence of their parents or other doctors.
Le Scouarnec practised at the Villeneuve hospital in Quimperle, Brittany
STEPHANE MAHE/REUTERS
Some children were under anaesthetic during the alleged assaults and, as adults, have only blurred recollections.
Others, however, recalled them only too well. Francesca Satta, a lawyer representing several alleged victims, said her clients included “the families of two men who did remember and ended up killing themselves”.
French authorities were first alerted by the FBI in 2004 during a global investigation into paedophile networks.
Two years later a psychiatrist working at the same hospital as Le Scouarnec wrote to management expressing concern that the surgeon was still treating children despite his conviction for downloading and sharing images of child abuse.
Satta said his acts were “overlooked” because of his position. “The evidence was there,” she said. “But no one will take action against a senior surgeon.”
Roland and Mauricette Vinet with a portrait of their grandson Mathis, an alleged victim of Le Scouarnec, who died of an overdose in 2021
GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP/GETTY
France is still reeling from months of shocking revelations during the trial of Dominique Pelicot. The former electrician was convicted in December of inviting dozens of men to rape his wife after he had sedated her, over a period of nearly a decade.
There has also been a series of accusations of rape or sexual assault by high-profile celebrities, including Gérard Depardieu, the actor, who denies all the allegations against him.
In another case, Christophe Ruggia, a film director, was sentenced to two years of home detention for sexually assaulting the actress Adèle Haenel.
The nation was further horrified by the arrests last week of five people suspected of involvement in what detectives believe was a huge paedophile ring. Investigators revealed the existence of what they suspect was a child-trafficking network extending over much of France and Belgium.