A French court is due to give its verdict on Wednesday, May 28, in the trial of a surgeon who admitted to sexually abusing hundreds of patients over more than two decades, in one of the country's largest child sex abuse cases. Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is already in prison since 2020, after having been given a 15-year sentence for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.
In the current trial, which began in February, he has admitted to sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients – 256 of whom were under 15 – in hospitals in western France between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. Le Scouarnec has been charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults and is set to emerge as one of the most prolific convicted sex predators in France's history.
Prosecutor Séphane Kellenberger on Friday requested the maximum 20-year sentence for the retired surgeon and also made the rare demand that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision, even after any release.
The verdict, which will be handed down by presiding judge Aude Buresi, is set to be announced from noon local time. French law does not allow sentences to be added together even when there are multiple victims.
The victims have been represented by around 60 lawyers. "I hope the verdict will be commensurate with the horrors he committed," Amélie Lévêque, one of the victims, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "But I don't believe it very much."
While Le Scouarnec has asked his victims for forgiveness, many of them have 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 paedophile who ever lived," said one of the lawyers representing the victims, Thomas Delaby, describing him as the "atomic bomb of paedophilia." 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 in the western French region of Brittany, 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, has 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 "paedophile." "And I am very happy about it," he recorded.
The surgeon practised for decades, until his retirement in 2017, despite a 2005 sentence for owning sexually abusive images of children and reports by colleagues expressing their concerns.
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.
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.