Latest news with #victimes
News.com.au
28-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
French court to rule on surgeon who abused children for decades
A French court is to give its verdict Wednesday 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. Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, is already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. In this trial, which began in February, he has admitted sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients -- 256 of them under 15 -- in hospitals in western France between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. Le Scouarnec is 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. The victims have been represented by around 60 lawyers. "I hope the verdict will be commensurate with the horrors he committed," Amelie Leveque, one of the victims, told AFP. "But I don't believe it very much." Victims and child rights advocates say the surgeon's case highlights systemic shortcomings that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes. Prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger has 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 due to his "dangerousness". In France, sentences are not added together, unlike in the United States where Le Scouarnec would have been jailed for "2,000 years", said the prosecutor. - 'Major pervert' - "I am not asking the court for leniency," Le Scouarnec said in his closing statement in Vannes in the western region of Brittany on Monday. "Simply grant me the right to become a better person," he said. The verdict, which will be handed down by presiding judge Aude Buresi, is expected to be announced from 2:30 pm (1230 GMT). One of the 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 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. - '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, sometimes word for word. "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". 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. The surgeon practised for decades until his retirement in 2017 despite a 2005 sentence for owning sexually abusive images of children and colleagues raising their concerns. Le Scouarnec might stand trial again in the future, the public prosecutor said. Prosecutors opened two investigations, one of which concerns unidentified or newly reported victims of Le Scouarnec. 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. A collective of the survivors is set to meet with Neuder in June.
Al Jazeera
28-05-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
French surgeon sentenced to 20 years for sex abuse of nearly 300 people
A French court has sentenced a retired surgeon to 20 years in prison for raping or sexually abusing nearly 300 victims, many of them children under anaesthesia, over 25 years of his career in another case of years-long abuse that has rocked the nation. The conviction and sentencing on Wednesday in the Brittany court capped what is widely seen as the worst case of abuse of children that has ever gone to trial in modern France. It comes after 51 men were convicted of taking part in the decade-long mass rape of a woman, Gisele Pelicot, in southern France in what many advocates hoped would be a watershed #MeToo moment for those seeking justice against their abusers. Throughout the most recent trial, 74-year-old Joel Le Scouarnec admitted to raping or sexually abusing 299 patients – including 256 victims under the age of 15 – as he worked in hospitals in western France. The attacks took place from 1989 to 2014, many while his patients were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. All told, Le Scouarnec was charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults in the case, which began in February. Throughout the trial, Le Scouarnec told the court he committed 'despicable acts'. 'I owe it to all these people and their loved ones to admit my actions and their consequences, which they've endured and will keep having to endure all their lives,' he said at one point. But victims, lawyers and advocates who gathered at the courthouse throughout the trial and on Wednesday for the verdict said they put little stock in Le Scouarnec's words of contrition. 'You are the worst mass paedophile who ever lived,' Thomas Delaby, one of about 60 lawyers representing the victims, said during the trial. He described Le Scouarnec as an 'atomic bomb of paedophilia'. Delaby told Le Scouarnec the victims 'will never forgive you, never'. Le Scouarnec had previously been convicted in 2020 for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. He was already serving a 15-year sentence as the current trial played out. The 20-year sentence is the maximum possible. In France, sentences are not served consecutively. In the United States, prosecutors noted, Le Scouarnec would have been sentenced to '2,000 years'. The case has raised questions about France's publicly run health system and how Le Scouarnec was able to act with impunity for so many years. Advocates have demanded to know why he was allowed to continue working in public hospitals despite being convicted in 2005 of downloading images of child sexual abuse. At the time, he received a suspended jail sentence. The extent of Le Scouarnec's abuse was revealed only after his rearrest in 2017 on suspicion of raping his 6-year-old neighbour. Police then discovered electronic diaries that appeared to document decades of abuse in painstaking detail. In his notes, the doctor described himself as a 'major pervert' and a 'paedophile'. 'And I am very happy about it,' he wrote. Wednesday's verdict was handed down during what some hope will be a wider reckoning over sexual abuse in France and what some see as social mores that enable such crimes. In December, a court in the southern French city of Avignon convicted 51 men of the years-long rape and sexual abuse of Pelicot, who refused to remain anonymous during the proceedings and whose clear-eyed testimony resonated among the French public. 'I've decided not to be ashamed, I've done nothing wrong,' she testified during the trial. 'They are the ones who must be ashamed.' Among those convicted was Pelicot's ex-husband, 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot, who prosecutors said orchestrated the drugging and raping of his wife for nearly a decade.
CNA
28-05-2025
- General
- CNA
French surgeon jailed 20 years for sexually abusing hundreds of child patients
A French court has found former surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec guilty in one of the country's worst child sex abuse cases. He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting 299 people. The 74-year-old faced 111 counts of rape and 189 sexual assaults. Most of the victims were children at the time. The abuse spanned 25 years. Ross Cullen reports from Paris.
Al Arabiya
28-05-2025
- General
- Al Arabiya
French court gives 20-year jail term to surgeon for abusing children
A French court on Wednesday gave the maximum 20-year jail term to a French surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them minors, during more than two decades. The court's verdict was delivered after the three-month trial of Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, which 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 preying on victims.
The Independent
28-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
French court to deliver verdict in landmark child sex abuse case involving 299 victims
A French court will deliver its verdict Wednesday in one of the country's largest-ever child sex abuse cases, which has raised questions about how a pedophile surgeon was able to rape hundreds of victims over a period spanning more than two decades. Joël Le Scouarnec, a 74-year-old former surgeon, stands accused of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children. On Friday, prosecutors requested the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, describing Le Scouarnec as 'a devil in a white coat.' He's already serving a 15-year prison sentence, for a conviction in 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces. The new trial in Brittany, western France, began in February and has laid bare a pattern of abuse between 1989 and 2014. Most of the victims were unconscious or sedated hospital patients at the time of the assaults. The average age was 11. Among the victims were 158 boys and 141 girls. Accusations of inaction During the trial, advocacy groups have accused health authorities of inaction after they were notified as soon as 2005 of Le Scouarnec's conviction for possessing child pornography pictures. At the time, no measures were taken to suspend his medical license or limit his contact with children and Le Scouarnec continued his abuse in hospitals until his arrest in 2017. 'Should Joël Le Scouarnec have been the only one in the defendant's box?' prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger asked during his closing arguments. ' More could have been done," Kellenberger said. "Things could have been done differently, even within the notorious layers of French bureaucracy, where responsibilities are so often passed from one authority to another until, eventually, that responsibility is lost, and hits innocent lives." Le Scouarnec has confessed to all the sexual abuse alleged by the 299 civil parties, as well as to other assaults that are now beyond the statute of limitations. In a shocking admission during the trial, he also acknowledged sexually abusing his granddaughter — a statement made in front of her visibly distraught parents. Le Scouarnec had been convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child sexual abuse material and sentenced to four months of suspended prison time. Despite that conviction, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the following year. Child protection groups that have joined the proceedings as civil parties hope that the case will help strengthen the legal framework to prevent such abuse. Dismantling taboos Le Scouarnec's trial came as activists continue to push to dismantle taboos that have long surrounded sexual abuse in France. The most prominent case was that of Gisèle Pélicot, who was drugged and raped by her now ex-husband and dozens of other men who were convicted and sentenced in December to three to 20 years in prison. In a separate case focusing on alleged abuse at a Catholic school, an inquiry commission of the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, is investigating allegations of physical and sexual abuse over five decades. Victims of Le Scouarnec have, however, complained of a perceived lack of attention. "This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large,' a group of victims said in a statement. Horrific notebooks Not all victims were initially aware they had been abused. Some were contacted by investigators after their names appeared in journals kept by Le Scouarnec, in which he meticulously documented his crimes. Others only realized they had been hospitalized at the time after checking medical records. Two of his victims took their own lives some years before the trial. Using the cover of medical procedures, the former abdominal and digestive surgeon took advantage of moments when children were alone in their hospital rooms. His method was to disguise sexual abuse as clinical care, targeting young patients who were unlikely to remember the encounters. The notebooks, which detail the abuse in graphic language, have become central to the prosecution's case. Despite the scope of the allegations, Le Scouarnec has remained calm and composed throughout the trial. 'I didn't see them as people,' he told the court. 'They were the destination of my fantasies. As the trial went on, I began to see them as individuals, with emotions, anger, suffering and distress.' He said his first act of abuse occurred in 1985, when he raped his 5-year-old niece. Detached and emotionless While he offered apologies to some victims, his demeanor struck many as detached and emotionless. 'I don't show emotion, that's just how I am,' he said. 'That doesn't mean I don't feel it, but I don't express it.' The case first came to light in April 2017, when a 6-year-old neighbor told her mother that the man next door had exposed himself and touched her through the fence separating their properties. A search of his home uncovered more than 300,000 photos, 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile and detailed his actions. 'Joël Le Scouarnec says he no longer feels any sexual attraction to children, but there's no way to verify that,' Kellenberger, the prosecutor, told the court. 'Experts concluded that we cannot rely on his word alone and that his potential for future danger remains significant.' Prosecutors are seeking not only a 20-year prison sentence with a two-thirds minimum term, but also a post-sentence preventive detention, a rarely used measure in France that applies to the country's most dangerous offenders. If approved, Le Scouarnec could be held indefinitely in a secure socio-medical facility, even after serving his time. A third trial is expected in the coming years, following the emergence of new allegations during this trial, including further abuse involving his granddaughter.
