Retired French surgeon guilty of 299 rapes gets 20-year prison sentence
Warning: This story contains graphic content
A French court has sentenced a former surgeon to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of the rape and sexual assault of hundreds of people – mostly children, and many under anesthesia – during his decades-long career.
The trial of Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, which began in February, is believed to be the country's largest child abuse case.
During the trial in Vannes in north-western France, Le Scouarnec confessed to raping and sexually assaulting 299 people between 1989 and 2014, the Associated Press and French media reported.
Most of the victims were minors; their average age at the time of the alleged crimes was 11.
The sentence is the maximum penalty available. Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence in a separate case, in which he was found guilty in 2020 on four counts of rape and sexual assault against a six-year-old neighbour, a patient and two of his nieces.
In France, sentences are served simultaneously, not added together. He was also sentenced to a two-thirds minimum sentence, so he cannot request an adjustment before early May 2030, said Giovanni Bertho-Briand, a lawyer in the case.
With potential sentence reductions for good behaviour, he can hope to be released between early August 2030 and December 2033, Bertho-Briand added.
The court did not uphold the prosecution's request to send Le Scouarnec to a supervised facility for an indefinite period after he serves his prison time, a very rare measure for convicted dangerous offenders in France.
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