A former surgeon in France is set to stand trial on Monday for allegedly raping or sexually assaulting nearly 300 former patients, the majority of whom were children.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, is already serving a prison sentence following his 2020 conviction for abusing four children, including two of his nieces.
His upcoming trial, expected to last four months, will examine claims that he assaulted or raped 299 patients between 1989 and 2014.
Many of these alleged attacks occurred while victims were under anesthesia or during post-surgery examinations at various hospitals.
Of the 299 alleged victims, 256 were under the age of 15, with the youngest being just one year old and the oldest 70. The case is set to cause fresh outrage across France.
The trial follows another shocking case just two months ago involving Dominique Pelicot, who was convicted of orchestrating the rape of his heavily sedated wife, Gisele Pelicot, by multiple strangers.
Since divorcing him, Gisele has emerged as a prominent feminist figure for refusing to carry the shame of the ordeal.
In Le Scouarnec’s case, he is the sole defendant accused of abusing hundreds of victims.
The trial will take place in the city of Vannes, Brittany, with public proceedings, except for seven days of closed-door testimonies from victims who were minors at the time of the alleged crimes.
If found guilty, Le Scouarnec faces a maximum prison term of 20 years, as French law does not permit cumulative sentencing for multiple offenses.
A Systemic Failure
Despite concerns raised by colleagues and a 2005 conviction for possessing child sexual abuse material, Le Scouarnec continued practicing for years.
In 2004, while working in Lorient, the FBI identified him as one of hundreds of individuals in France accessing child sex abuse images online. The following year, a court in Vannes sentenced him to a four-month suspended jail term.
By then, he had already relocated to Quimperlé, where he was promoted even after management was informed of his conviction.
He later moved to southwestern France, where he remained in medical practice until his retirement in 2017.
Authorities only began investigating his alleged crimes after a six-year-old girl accused him of rape in 2017. A subsequent police search uncovered diaries detailing accounts of abuse, leading to a wider probe.
Victims and child protection advocates argue that systemic failures enabled Le Scouarnec to continue offending for decades.
Frederic Benoist, a lawyer for child advocacy group La Voix de l’Enfant (The Child’s Voice), condemned the failure to strip him of his medical license, calling it a “collective failure.”
Meanwhile, regional prosecutors have launched a separate inquiry into these institutional shortcomings, though no individuals or organizations have been formally targeted yet.
