French surgeon gets 20 years for child abuse

Here in Vannes, many of those caught up in the trial feel relieved that this part of their ordeal is over. However, calls are mounting for a reconsideration of French law and a thorough investigation into the case.  

One man whose son was abused by Le Scouarnec and who subsequently died by an overdose, which his family believes was suicide, told DW they want to see jail-for-life sentences for this kind of serial abuse.

In France, the maximum sentence for aggravated rape is 20 years.

Outside the court, a survivor told DW that "there were major institutional failures."

"It's hard to know I left my child in the hands of this monster," a mother of a survivor added. 

"I'll regret it for all my life."

Joel Le Scouarnec will not appeal his conviction after a French court sentenced him to the maximum 20 years in prison for sexually abusing hundreds of patients.

"Mr Le Scouarnec never intended to appeal," Maxime Tessier, one of his lawyers, told reporters.

French judges followed the public prosecutor’s recommendation and sentenced Joel Le Scouarnec to the maximum term of 20 years in prison.

They also ruled that he must serve at least two-thirds of the sentence before becoming eligible for release.

Some victims and their supporters say the sentence is sufficient, as Rosie Birchard reports from Vannes.

Joel Le Scouarnec, the former French surgeon who admitted to sexually abusing or raping hundreds of patients, has been sentenced to the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The court found him guilty of sexually assaulting 299 victims over a span of three decades, most of them children.

"Your acts were a blind spot in the medical world, to the extent that your colleagues, the medical authorities, were incapable of stopping your actions," Presiding Judge Aude Buresi told Le Scouarnec.

Now 74-years-old, Le Scouarnec is already serving time for previous rape convictions. 

Prosecutors indicated that further charges may still be brought against him, as additional cases of abuse were uncovered during the investigation that led to Wednesday’s verdict.

A French court found former surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, who admitted to sexually abusing hundreds of patients over more than two decades, guilty and handed down a 20-year jail term to the surgeon for abusing children.

Louis-Marie is one of 299 people who were allegedly raped or sexually assaulted by Joel Le Scouarnec.

He told the Reuters news agency in February he decided to publicly testify in the trial because he drew inspiration from the courage of Gisele Pelicot, who last year cast aside her right to anonymity when she gave evidence in the trial of her estranged husband who over the years invited dozens of strangers to their home to rape her.

"There has been the #MeToo movement, there has been Mrs Pelicot who was extremely brave, and I think she's right, it's not for us victims to feel shame," Louis-Marie told Reuters. Reuters agreed not to publish his surname to protect his family's privacy.

The Le Scouarnec case has not recieved the level of attention given to that of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed last year for recruiting dozens of strangers to rape Gisele.

Some parties in the Le Scouarnec trial were frustrated that it had not had the impact in France they had hoped for.

Some 20 of Le Scouarnec's victims and their relatives staged a protest in front of the court in early May over the "silence of the political world."

They demanded "an interministerial commission" to "learn lessons" from the Le Scouarnec case and prevent similar events from happening again.

"This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no
mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large," a group of victims said in a statement.

"They're trying to make him out to be a monster, but this monster is the society that created him and allowed him to persist," said Manon Lemoine, now 36, one of the victims who Le Scouarnec admits to raping when she was 11.

DW does not usually publish the names of victims but is doing so on their instance because they want to raise awareness about sexual abuse.

In 2005, Joel Le Scouarnec was handed a suspended four-month jail sentence for possessing child pornography.

Despite this, he secured a job as a surgeon at a public hospital in the town of Quimperle in Brittany, western France, the following year.

"Why didn't the medical association revoke his license straightaway? Looking at child sexual abuse material is often the first step toward committing a crime," Homayra Sellier, the president of the child welfare association "Innocence en Danger" ("Innocence in Danger"), which is supporting 37 victims and a plaintiff in the case, told DW.

Sellier hopes that the court proceedings will lead to change. 

"Dozens of victims were not recognized as civil plaintiffs because the crimes had expired by limitation after more than 30 years," she said. "The statue of limitation should be abolished for sexual offenses against minors."

Le Scouarnec is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.

"You were the devil, and he sometimes is dressed in a white coat," prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger told Joel Le Scouarnec in the closing arguments for his trial.

The 74-year-old faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of abusing almost 300 of his patients, and prosecutors want the court to order that even if Le Scouarnec is released, he should be placed in a center for treatment and supervision.

They pointed to the accused's "serious personality disorders and the danger posed by these disorders."

Additionally, he had often abused patients who were still under anesthesia or children who were unable to classify his actions as abuse.

Kellenberger said that due to the scale of the case—spanning decades and multiple regions—authorities have not identified all victims within the trial’s timeframe. However, “these victims have not been forgotten,” and further investigations may lead to another trial, he added.

"I am not asking the court for leniency," Le Scouarnec said in his closing statement.

"Simply grant me the right to become a better person," he added.

His lawyer asked the court to take into account the "exceptional" nature of Le Scouarnec's confession when he admitted all the charges against him in March.

It’s a gray, drizzly day in the French seaside town of Vannes as Joel Le Scouarnec awaits sentencing for sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children.

“It’s the shame of the Brittany region, he started everything here,” 83-year-old Joelle Leboru tells me from her spot on a bench overlooking the marina.

There are few uncertainties surrounding the upcoming verdict. Le Scouarnec has admitted to all charges and has asked for “no leniency” in his sentencing. Still, the case raises broader questions: How could such abuse occur under the noses of authorities? And are there adequate safeguards in place to prevent this kind of prolific abuse from happening again?

Ahead of the sentencing, the courthouse is cool and quiet. The usual hum of French bureaucracy is occasionally interrupted by journalists broadcasting live. What’s striking is how little attention this case has received compared to the recent high-profile trial involving rape survivor Gisele Pelicot.

“It’s even more taboo,” says 21-year-old passerby Emma Le Floch when I ask her about the relative silence surrounding the Le Scouarnec trial. A local resident, she says people here find it difficult to talk about. “We don't talk enough about sexual violence toward children. We don't want to talk about it.”

At the opening of his trial in the city of Vannes in western France in February, Joel Le Scouarnec admitted to having committed "despicable" acts.

He is accused of aggravated rape and sexual assault against 299 victims between 1989 and 2014. The average age of the patients he allegedly assaulted was 11.

Le Scouarnec has accepted responsibility for "a large majority" of the allegations.

Beginning around 1990, Le Scouarnec documented his crimes in a diary. Investigators discovered the notes in 2017 during a search of his home, which was conducted after a six-year-old girl told her parents that their neighbor, a surgeon, had raped her. The parents subsequently filed a complaint.

He recorded his victims' names, ages, and addresses, along with details of the abuse.

A search of his home also uncovered more than 300,000 photos, 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as
notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile.

Many of the assaults reportedly occurred while the victims were waking up from anesthesia or during post-operative checkups.

One of France’s biggest sexual abuse trials is nearing its conclusion, with a verdict expected in the coming hours.

Joel Le Scouarnec, a 74-year-old former surgeon, has admitted to sexually abusing or raping nearly 300 patients over a span of 25 years. Most of his victims were children, many of whom were unconscious or just waking up from surgery.

Prosecutors are seeking the maximum 20-year sentence and have called for post-release supervision in a secure facility.

The trial comes amid a broader reckoning over sexual violence in France, following the December conviction of Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his wife and invited dozens of men to assault her.

This blog will bring you live updates from the courtroom, expert analysis, multimedia content, and DW’s on-the-ground reporting.