A surgeon accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of patients finally faced his alleged victims today at the start of a trial which is set to disclose details of the largest alleged paedophile case in French history.
Wearing a beige jumper and black jacket, white-haired Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, emerged from a cell into a courtroom in the city of Vannes, Brittany, to confirm his name as Judge Aude Buresi declared the hearing open.
When asked what his profession was ‘before being incarcerated,’ he replied: ‘Surgeon’.
The bespectacled surgeon is accused of assaulting or raping 299 boys and girls over three decades – many of whom were under anaesthetic following surgical procedures at hospitals across France where Le Scouarnec worked.
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.
Le Scouarnec is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence having been convicted in 2020 of the attacks on a six-year-old next-door neighbour, a four-year-old patient and two of his nieces.
The true scale of his alleged offending only became clear in 2017 when the six-year-old victim told her parents that ‘the man with a crown of white hair’ had molested over their garden fence and they contacted the police.
During the subsequent raid on his property in the small town of Jonzac, south-west France, police found 300,000 photos and videos depicting child abuse and diaries containing meticulous accounts of his assaults on boys and girls including the names of victims, descriptions of the attacks and the dates.
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
Officers also found a collection of life-sized dolls under the parquet flooring of the house which the surgeon had given names. In his diaries he also revealed he had ‘killed’ some of them after panicking when a paedophile ring was uncovered in Burgundy.
In one handwritten note, Le Scouarnec wrote: ‘I am a paedophile and I will always be be’.
Police used his diaries to track down hundreds of alleged victims – many of whom had no recollection of being assaulted as they were sedated.
Other alleged victims had been driven to suicide, 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 took up a full-time hospital post in Jonzac, where he continued practising – and allegedly abusing patients – until 2017.
Le Scouarnec’s actions are said to have driven patients to suicide, sparked drug and alcohol dependency in others and destroyed relationships
One of Le Scouarnec’s victims, Mathis Vinet died of a drug overdose aged just 24
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 today, 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.
During a rally, signs were help up reading: ‘Stop the code of silence.’
One retired GP said the lack of action from the authorities was ‘shameful.’
Le Scouarnec secured a full-time post in Jonzac in 2008. The director of the hospital was reportedly aware of his conviction but hired him anyway because there had been ‘no physical assault’
Ariel Ladebourg, a 21-year-old medical student, said the trial was just ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ suggesting that many such assaults against children go unpunished.
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. The average age of the alleged victims was 11.
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.
