A French court on Wednesday, May 28, gave the maximum 20-year jail term to a surgeon who admitted to sexually assaulting or raping hundreds of patients, most of them children, over more than two decades. The three-month trial of Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, has brought to light the extent of his crimes and the suffering of his victims but also raised questions of why more was not done sooner to stop him.
Le Scouarnec, one of the most prolific convicted sex predators in France's history, was already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.
In this trial, which began in February in Vannes in the western region of Brittany, Le Scouarnec admitted to sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients – 256 of them under 15 – in hospitals between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. He was charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults.
The 20-year sentence for aggravated rape handed down by presiding judge Aude Buresi was the maximum that could be given on the charge of aggravated rape in France, where sentences are not added together on individual counts. The prosecutor said last week that in the United States – where the opposite is true – Le Scouarnec could have been jailed for "2,000 years."
Le Scouarnec will not be able to ask for parole until two-thirds of the sentence is served. "It was taken into account that the acts committed are of particular gravity due to the number of victims, their young age and the compulsive nature" of the crimes, said the verdict. However, the court rejected a rare demand from prosecutors that he should be held in a center for treatment and supervision even after any release, citing his "desire to make amends" for what he had done.
Le Scouarnec might stand trial again in the future, the public prosecutor said in his closing speech. The Lorient public prosecutor's office has opened two investigations linked to the retired doctor's case, one of which concerns "possibly unidentified or newly reported victims" of sexual assault and rape.
Survivors of the surgeon's abuse staged a protest outside the court in Vannes, holding signs such as "Never again" and "I accuse you." They also held signs representing Le Scouarnec's 355 victims. That number included "forgotten victims and those whose cases have been dismissed," said Manon Lemoine, one of the victims. "We want to be together," she said.
While Le Scouarnec asked his victims for forgiveness, many of them questioned the sincerity of his apologies, which he repeated almost mechanically over the weeks of the trial, sometimes word for word. "You are the worst mass pedophile who ever lived," said one of the lawyers representing the victims, Thomas Delaby, describing him as the "atomic bomb of pedophilia." The victims "will never forgive you. Never," Delaby told the defendant.
"Who are you trying to convince that you've changed?" said another lawyer, Delphine Caro. "Admitting everything is admitting nothing," added a third lawyer, Giovanni Bertho-Briand.
Meanwhile, in his closing statement in Vannes, on Monday, Le Scouarnec said: "I am not asking the court for leniency."
"Simply grant me the right to become a better person," he added. One of Le Scouarnec's lawyers, Maxime Tessier, 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.
The retired surgeon also said he considered himself "responsible" for the death of two of his victims – Mathis Vinet, who died after an overdose in 2021 in what his family says was suicide, and another man who was found dead in 2020.
Le Scouarnec had documented his crimes, noting his victims' names, ages, addresses and the nature of the abuse. In his notes, the doctor described himself as a "major pervert" and a "pedophile." "And I am very happy about it," he recorded.
The surgeon practiced for decades, until his retirement in 2017, despite a 2005 child pornography sentence and reports by colleagues expressing their concerns. In 2005, he received a four-month suspended prison sentence after investigators linked his credit card to the online purchase of child sexual abuse material. However, Le Scouarnec was neither required to undergo treatment nor barred from practicing medicine.
Victims and child rights advocates say the surgeon's case highlights systemic shortcomings that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes. There has been frustration among some that the trial has not had the impact in France that many had hoped for.
One victim, Céline Mahuteau, on Wednesday sent a letter to President Emmanuel Macron saying that France has not implemented a national policy "to prevent pedophilia."
On Wednesday, Health Minister Yannick Neuder said he would work with Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin to ensure that "never again will we find ourselves in a situation where patients and vulnerable children" are exposed to predators. "What we want to say is never again," he told the broadcaster France Info. "How did we get into this situation?"