Former Surgeon Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sexually Assaulting Nearly 300 Victims for More Than 2 Decades

A former surgeon in France has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting hundreds of children over several decades. 

Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, received the maximum prison sentence in court in Vannes, a city in the region of Brittany on Wednesday, May 28.

The ruling followed a three-month trial during which he confessed to sexually assaulting 299 victims — many of whom were his own patients — between 1989 and 2014, according to NBC News, BBC and Reuters.

Many of his victims were around 11 at the time of their assault. Prosecutors alleged that the assaults often occurred when the children were “under the effects of anesthesia or recovering from surgery,” per NBC.

Le Scouarnec’s trial has been described as the largest one dealing with child sexual abuse in France’s history, according to CBS News. 

Law enforcement was able to build a case against the French doctor thanks to his diaries, in which he detailed each of the sexual assaults in detail, per BBC. The outlet noted that multiple victims had no memory of the abuse.

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Le Scouarnec admitted that he committed “sexual assaults on little patients” during his trial in March, per the outlet and Reuters. He also admitted to being “responsible” for the deaths of two victims, who remembered the abuse and had taken their lives as a result of the trauma they experienced. The disgraced doctor apologized for what he described as “revolting” acts. 

“I am not asking the court for leniency,” Le Scouarnec said during his closing statement, per NBC. He added that he wished the court “simply grant me the right to become a better person.”

Le Scouarnec, who is currently serving a 15 year prison sentence after being found guilty in 2020 of raping a young neighbor, two of his nieces and another 4-year-old patient, is set to serve his new prison sentence concurrently with his previous one, according to the outlet.

During this investigation, police uncovered Le Scouarnec’s diaries containing details of the alleged abuse over the course of 25 years and sections where he allegedly wrote, “I am a pedophile” multiple times, according to France 24. They also found more than 300,000 “indecent images of minors, including pictures of his two nieces,” and found child-sized sex dolls, per BBC. 

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Le Scouarnec’s trial has put the French medical system under scrutiny by victims and their families, who claimed that the system ignored signs of sexual abuse. The French doctor was allowed to continue working at local hospitals and private clinics even after a 2005 conviction for possessing images of child sexual abuse, per Reuters and NBC.

“There were warnings over 30 years,” said Francesca Satta, a lawyer who represented 10 victims and families, per NBC. She added, “This man benefited from a system that opened the door for him to have his own hunting ground.”

The National Order of Doctors in France has since filed a lawsuit against Le Scouarnec, saying that it “expressed its deep regrets” for how the situation with the surgeon was handled and said that he should have been “prevented from practicing,” according to BBC. 

“This situation has highlighted poor communication between the different entities of the Order of Doctors, and we deeply regret this,” they said in a statement.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.