Content warning: This story contains highly distressing themes including child abuse, rape and suicide.
The largest child abuse trial in French history begins today.
Retired surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec is accused of sexually abusing nearly 300 people, mostly children, often while they were under anaesthetic in hospital.
The average age of his alleged victims was 11.
Le Scouarnec is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence over separate child abuse charges.
Background
Le Scouarnec worked as an abdominal surgeon across dozens of French hospitals.
After retiring in 2017, he was charged with raping two of his nieces, as well as a six-year-old girl and another young patient.
Evidence seized from his home in western France included child-sized sex dolls, hundreds of thousands of child abuse images, and 25 years’ worth of Le Scouarnec’s personal diaries. He wrote “I am a paedophile” across several entries.
Across thousands of diary entries, Le Scouarnec appears to describe assaulting several young patients.
The retired doctor denied the charges and said the diaries were “fantasies,” rather than accounts of real events.
He was found guilty of abusing all four children and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in 2020.
Based on Le Scouarnec’s diary entries, police continued investigating him after the trial concluded.
New charges
Investigators gathered the testimonies of hundreds of alleged victims named in Le Scouarnec’s diaries.
He was eventually charged with over 100 counts of rape and 150 sexual assault offences.
It’s alleged the surgeon assaulted or raped 299 patients between 1989 and 2014.
Of the alleged victims, 256 were under 15, including a one-year-old baby. The oldest victim was aged 70 at the time of the alleged incident.
Allegations
Le Scouarnec is accused of abusing his patients – many of whom were sedated or under anaesthetic – across a dozen hospitals in northwestern France.
Former patients told the BBC they remember the surgeon “touching them under the guise of medical examinations, sometimes even when their parents or other doctors were in the room.”
Lawyer Francesca Satta said that while many victims were too young to remember being abused, she represents “the families of two men who did remember, and who ended up taking their own lives.”
Hospitals
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The allegations have raised questions about failures within the French health system.
In 2005, Le Scouarnec was convicted over the possession of child abuse materials, after he was caught accessing illicit images on the dark web. He was handed a four-month suspended sentence, and did not serve any jail time.
Le Scouarnec continued treating young patients. Some of his colleagues called for his resignation. When he refused to stand down, they escalated their concerns to the hospital’s director and a state regulatory body.
The hospital defended Le Scouarnec, who was then promoted to head of surgery. Local authorities didn’t bring any sanctions.
Le Scouarnec moved to another hospital in 2008, where he worked until his retirement. The hospital knew about the 2005 conviction when they hired him.
Le Scouarnec was never barred from practising throughout his career. French advocacy group, The Child’s Voice, called this a “collective failure”.
The group also claims the court that convicted Le Souarnec failed in its legal obligation to notify the national surgery watchdog, under the French Public Health Code.
Trial
Le Scouarnec will face trial in a court in Brittany.
Proceedings commence on Monday and are expected to last four months.
According to The New York Times, Le Scouarnec has denied several charges, but he has admitted to the inappropriate touching of some patients.
The 74-year-old is facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Response
Demonstrators are expected to gather outside the court to protest “inaction” within the healthcare system on Monday.
A joint statement from several community advocacy groups accused the Order of Physicians, a regulatory body, of “years of silence” and “serious failings”.
“Many assaults and rapes could have been prevented,” it said.
Child protection authorities have called on the French Government to guarantee “the proper functioning of its institutions,” to “prevent these crimes from happening again”.
The National Council of the Order of Physicians said it “sincerely hopes” the trial will “shed full light on the abominable crimes committed,” and deliver justice.
It defended actions taken by the Council in recent years, including “several reforms” to strengthen processes between healthcare providers and law enforcement.
“Today, the Order of Physicians is committed to continuing its work to ensure that the integrity of the medical profession is never compromised and that patients can be treated in complete safety,” it said.
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