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BBC News
7 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Joel Le Scouarnec: Prolific French paedophile's sentence leaves victims appalled
The victims of prolific French paedophile Joel Le Scouarnec have expressed their dismay that the former surgeon's 20-year prison sentence does not include preventive detention - meaning he could be released from jail in the early 74-year-old was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing hundreds of people, most of them underage patients of his, over decades. Over the course of the trial he had confessed to committing 111 rapes crimes and 188 sexual assaults, and was sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in jail. Prosecutors - who dubbed Le Scouarnec "a devil in a white coat" - had asked the court to take the extremely rare provision to hold him in a centre for treatment and supervision even after release, called preventative detention. But the judge rejected this demand, arguing Le Scouarnec's age and his "desire to make amends" had been taken into Scouarnec will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence before being eligible for parole. But because he has already served seven years due to a previous conviction for the rape and sexual assault of four children, he may be eligible for parole by lawyer, Maxime Tessier, pointed out that saying Le Scouarnec could be released then was "inaccurate", as parole is not tantamout a his victims - many of whom assiduously attended the three-month-long trial in Vannes, northern France - are lamenting the sentence. "For a robbery you risk 30 years. But the punishment for hundreds of child rapes is lighter?" one victim told Le Monde. The president of a child advocacy group, Solène Podevin Favre, said that she might have expected the verdict "to be less lenient" and to include a post-sentence preventative detention."It's the maximum sentence, certainly," she said. "But it's the least we could have hoped for. Yet in six years, he could potentially be released. It's staggering."Marie Grimaud, one of the lawyers representing the victims, told reporters that while she "intellectually" understood the verdict, "symbolically" she could not. Another lawyer, Francesca Satta, said that she felt 20 years was too short a time given the number of victims in the case. "It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences," she in her judgement read out to the court, Judge Aude Burési said that, while the court had "heard perfectly the demands from the plaintiffs that Le Scouarnec should never be released from jail, it would be demagogic and fanciful to let them believe that would be possible"."In fact," she added, "the rule of law does not allow for that to happen."One of Le Scouarnec's victims, Amélie Lévêque, said the verdict had "shocked" her and that she would have liked preventative detention to be imposed. "How many victims would it take? A thousand?"She argued that French law needed to change and allow for harsher sentences to take into account the serial nature of crimes. Similar complaints were raised in the aftermath of the Pelicot trial last December, in which Dominique Pelicot was found guilty of drugging and raping his wife, Gisèle, and recruited dozens of men to abuse her over almost a decade. Pelicot, too, was sentenced to 20 years - the maximum sentence for rape in French law - with the obligation to serve a minimum of two-thirds in case, however, will have to be re-examined at the end of the prison sentence before the question of preventative detention can be explored. In France, sentences are not served consecutively. Public prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger noted last week that had Le Scouarnec been on trial in the US - where people serve one prison sentence after another - he may have faced a sentence of over 4,000 years. But Cécile de Oliveira, one of the victims' lawyers, praised the sentence, which she said had been "finely tailored" to Le Scouarnec's "psychiatric condition". She agreed with the court's decision not to impose preventative detention on the former surgeon, adding: "It needs to remain an entirely exceptional punishment."After the verdict was read out, victims, journalists and lawyers mingled outside the courthouse in Vannes. Many of the civil parties and their relatives, angered by the verdict, brought their frustration to the media. "All that I ask for is that this man cannot offend again," the mother of a victim told French outlets. "If this kind of behaviour needs to entail a life sentence, so be it."
The Journal
28-05-2025
- The Journal
French surgeon sentenced to 20 years for abusing hundreds of children over two decades
A FRENCH COURT on Wednesday gave a 20-year jail term to a surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, during more than two decades. The three-month trial of Joel 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. He will not appeal his conviction, his lawyer said. 'Mr Le Scouarnec never intended to appeal,' Maxime Tessier told reporters. 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. 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. Le Scouarnec will not be able to ask for parole until two-thirds of the verdict 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. But the court rejected a rare demand from prosecutors that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision even after any release, citing his 'desire to make amends' for what he had done. 'Forgotten victims' The prosecutor has said last week that in the United States – where the opposite is the case – Le Scouarnec could have been jailed for '2,000 years'. In this trial, which began in February in Vannes in the western region of Brittany, Le Scouarnec has admitted 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. 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 355 victims of Le Scouarnec. 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. Another victim, Celine Mahuteau, on Wednesday sent a letter to President Emmanuel Macron saying that France has not implemented a national policy 'to prevent paedophilia.' Advertisement 'Major pervert' 'I am not asking the court for leniency,' Le Scouarnec said in his closing statement on Monday. 'Simply grant me the right to become a better person,' he said. One of the lawyers, Maxime Tessier, had asked the court to take into account the 'exceptional' nature of Le Scouarnec's confession when he admitted all the charges against him. 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 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. Victims and child rights advocates say the case highlights systemic failures that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes. 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. But Le Scouarnec was neither required to undergo treatment nor barred from practising medicine. 'Never again' 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. 'You are the worst mass paedophile who ever lived,' said one of the lawyers representing the victims, Thomas Delaby, describing Le Scouarnec as an 'atomic bomb of paedophilia'. There has been frustration among some that the trial has not had the impact in France they hoped for. The case has not won the attention given to the case of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed last year for recruiting dozens of strangers to rape his now ex-wife Gisele. But Health Minister Yannick Neuder said on Wednesday he would work with Justice Minister Gerald 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 broadcaster France Info. 'How did we get into this situation?' – © AFP 2025
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
French court to sentence former surgeon who abused children for decades
A former French surgeon is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for the sexual abuse of hundreds of patients mostly aged under 15, as the biggest child abuse trial in French history ends. Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, worked as a digestive surgeon in public and private hospitals across Brittany and the west of France, often operating on children with appendicitis. During the harrowing three-month trial in Vannes, Brittany, he was accused of 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults between 1989 and 2014 at a dozen hospitals. Many of the children he assaulted were under anaesthesic or waking up after operations. Some were assaulted in their hospital beds. The average age of the child victims was 11. Le Scouarnec eventually admitted all the assaults in court, saying in his final statement: 'I am not asking the court for leniency.' During the trial he said: 'I was a surgeon who benefited from my status to attack children, I don't deny that.' Psychological assessments found that he remained extremely dangerous. Le Scouarnec's lawyer, Maxime Tessier, told the court: 'He is utterly guilty.' Tessier said the French medical world and politicians must now learn lessons from 'the major disfunction of our health system', which had not stopped Le Scouarnec's decades of abuse. Le Scouarnac was flagged to the French authorities by the FBI in 2004 for viewing child abuse imagery on the dark web. In 2005, he was convicted in a French court of owning child abuse imagery and given a four-year suspended prison sentence, but the court did not rule that the surgeon should never work with children. He continued to gain prestigious jobs in hospitals across the country until his retirement in 2017, systematically abusing children who had undergone surgery. Victims' groups and child protection campaigners said the trial had raised the issue of serious failings by the state and officials. They said there should be a full government assessment of how the surgeon had been able to continue working and abusing for so long. The 20-year prison sentence is the maximum Le Scouarnec can receive for aggravated rape. In France, sentences are not added together, unlike in the US where Le Scouarnec would have been jailed for 2,000 years, according to the state prosecutor, Stéphane Kellenberger. Le Scouarnec is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children. Kellenberger said there was likely to be a further trial after the prosecutor's office opened an investigation to find more victims whose abuse is not part of the current case. 'You were the devil and sometimes the devil is dressed in a white coat,' Kellenberger told Le Scouarnec. Le Scouarnec, whose 2005 conviction was not automatically flagged to hospitals where he worked, was employed at a series of regional hospitals that depended on having surgeons of his expertise in order to stay open. In one instance, Le Scouarnec had told Michèle Cals, the then-director of the Jonzac hospital in western France, about his 2005 conviction, saying he had only viewed child abuse imagery because he was upset about separating from his wife. Cals received no word from her medical hierarchy not to hire him, so she appointed him in 2008. 'We were in need of surgeons,' Cals told the court. Cals said Le Scouarnec's 2005 sentencing had not prohibited him from being around minors. She told the court she 'didn't dig deep enough' and recognised there had been a 'disfunction' on her part, and her superiors. Thierry Bonvalot, a hospital psychiatrist who had tried to raise the alarm about Le Scouarnec's 2005 conviction at one hospital where the surgeon later worked, said there had been a medical 'fiasco'. Joël Belloc, the head of the Order of Physicians in Charente-Maritime, where Le Scouarnec finished his career, was asked if he could have done things differently. He said: 'With hindsight, it's obvious we could have.' He added that 'perceptions were different' at the time. About 20 victims of Le Scouarnec and their relatives staged a protest outside the court earlier this month over what they called the 'silence of the political world'. They said a government committee should be set up to address the lessons from the Le Scouarnec case and prevent anything similar happening again. 'We are appalled to see that this trial of the century is not a watershed event in the eyes of the government and, more broadly, the general public,' the group said. Manon Lemoine, now 36, one of the victims who Le Scouarnec admitted to raping when she was 11, said: 'They're trying to make him out to be a monster, but this monster is the society that created him and allowed him to continue.'
Khaleej Times
26-05-2025
- Khaleej Times
French surgeon tells sexual abuse trial he is 'not asking for any leniency'
French surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, who admitted to sexually abusing nearly 300 mostly child patients, told his trial on Monday he was not asking for "leniency" but wanted "to become a better person". "I am not asking the court for leniency," he said in his closing statement after the prosecution last week asked for the maximum 20-year jail term. "Simply grant me the right to become a better person," he said at the end of the three-month trial in Vannes in the western French region of Brittany. Le Scouarnec, 74, has admitted to sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients in hospitals in western France between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. Most -- 256 -- were under 15 at the time. The prosecution on Friday requested the maximum 20-year sentence for the former surgeon and also made the rare demand that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision even after any release. Le Scouarnec is already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. The retired doctor spoke after his defence lawyers presented their closing arguments. "Joel Le Scouarnec is not asking to escape the sentence requested by the public prosecutor," said one of the lawyers, Maxime Tessier. The lawyer 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. "Joel Le Scouarnec has never blamed anyone else, he has always said, 'I am the only guilty party, I am the only one responsible,'" he said. "The court must be convinced of Joel Le Scouarnec's sincerity." The former doctor has asked his victims for forgiveness. But many have said they do not believe him. The verdict is expected on Wednesday.
