Who Is Joel Le Scouarnec, ‘Worst Paedophile In Medical History'? He Also Raped His Son's...

News18

29-05-2025

Last Updated:
Joel Le Scouarnec was sentenced to 20 years in prison over being guilty of raping or sexually abusing 299 victims.
The trial of 'France's worst-ever paedophile," aka former surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, has finally concluded with the court sentencing him to a maximum of 20 years in prison. Joel Le Scouarnec was found guilty of raping or sexually abusing 299 victims, most of whom were his minor patients. The 74-year-old was accused of carrying out a pattern of violence spanning over three decades between 1989 and 2014, committing the crime against 158 boys and 141 girls.
'You were the devil and he sometimes is dressed in a white coat," said prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger at the end of the trial, with Judge Aude Buresi noting that Scouarnec used to prey on his victims in their hospital rooms, with some unconscious under anaesthesia. 'Your acts were a blind spot in the medical world, to the extent that your colleagues, the medical authorities, were incapable of stopping your actions," the judge added.
Earlier in March, Scouarnec himself admitted to sexually abusing all 299 victims, as per the BBC. Dubbed as France's 'worst-ever" paedophile, Scouarnec was already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including his nieces. He remained on trial since late February, resulting in shocking testimonies from dozens of his victims. At a time when the trial has been sparking major reactions, with many furious over how Scouarnec got away with the abuse for over a decade, here's a brief backstory for the former doctor.
Who Is Joel Le Scouarnec?
At the heart of the much-publicised case is Joel Le Scouarnec, the 74-year-old retired surgeon who once worked in France's Brittany. Born in Paris, Scouarnec qualified as a surgeon at a medical facility in Nantes in 1983. In 1994, he was hired at a private clinic, following which he went on to work across a dozen hospitals in the west of France.
It was eventually in 2017 that the surgeon caught the attention of the French authorities after a six-year-old neighbour in Jonzac reported about 'a man with a crown of white hair" exposing himself and sexually touching her through a broken garden fence. This led to the beginning of an investigation that uncovered a horror that no one ever imagined.
The authorities discovered multiple hard drives containing over 3 lakh pictures and videos of child sexual abuse, as well as notebooks with details of the alleged abuse towards his child patients. The police also discovered a collection of dolls, some life-sized, under the floorboards.
'I am a paedophile and I always will be," one of the posts in the notebooks read.
Among the many victims, one of the most shocking revelations came after Scouarnec confessed to sexually abusing the daughter of his eldest son. 'I acknowledge acts of sexual abuse against my granddaughter," he said in the court, as per France24.
During the testimony, his eldest son recalled having a happy childhood, saying that his father was always busy with his medical practice, Noting that he grew up in a family where a lot of things were not discussed, the son shared that he learned only a few months before his father's arrest in 2017. His mother, Marie-France, who divorced Scouarnec in 2023, had never told him about the crimes.
It was in May 2017 when the son got to know the truth from his father, only to later learn from his cousins that his father had abused them as children. Around the same time, his 42-year-old brother also testified in court, claiming that he had been raped and sexually abused by his grandfather—Scouarnec's father—when he was between 5 and 10 years old.
First Published: