France has opened a judicial inquiry into systemic failures that allowed a convicted pedophile to practice as a surgeon for years while repeatedly abusing children in his care, a prosecutor said on Friday, July 18. A French court in May sentenced retired doctor Joël Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after he confessed to sexually abusing or raping 298 patients between 1989 and 2014. Of those, more than 250 victims were under 15. Victims and child rights advocates say the case highlights systemic flaws that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes.
Le Scouarnec has been in prison since a court convicted him in 2020 of abusing four children, including two of his nieces. Stephane Kellenberger, prosecutor in the western city of Lorient, said he had ordered an investigation last month into any failures to prevent the crimes. The new probe by an investigating magistrate, which follows a preliminary probe ordered in 2020, would be able to include any relevant elements from the latest trial.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) investigation published before the trial showed Le Scouarnec practiced medicine for years, despite a 2005 sentence for owning sexually abusive images of children, and both a colleague and a regional hospital official reporting him as unfit to practice. When Le Scouarnec was promoted in 2006, his criminal record did not appear to have been updated and was still blank, according to documents from local and regional health agencies, AFP reporting found. Following a regional investigation into a suspicious death at the hospital where he worked, Le Scouarnec moved to the southwest of the country. Investigators only uncovered his alleged crimes after he retired in 2017, when a six-year-old girl accused him of rape and police found countless accounts of abuse in his diaries.
During the trial, the National Order of Physicians – a civil party in the case – said it "regretted" what it described as "dysfunctions" that allowed him to continue to practice. A group of the former surgeon's victims said a telephone hotline was launched on Thursday to provide support to victims, relatives and professionals who have followed the case. Investigators are also looking into whether there are more victims.