Trial in France of former pedophile surgeon, 300 young victims

The trial for one of the most disturbing news stories in recent years in the country, a paedophilia scandal involving a former surgeon, Joël Le Scouarnec, accused of sexually assaulting 300 young patients in over a dozen hospitals where he worked, opened today in Vannes, Brittany (north-west France).

Most of the victims, 299 according to the reports, were minors at the time of the events, 256 of them were under 15 and - when Le Scouarnec took advantage of them - they were asleep or in the process of waking up from anesthesia.

The surgeon, 74, has confessed to most of the rapes and sexual assaults for which he will have to answer for 4 months in the criminal court. Already sentenced in 2020 in Saintes, in the center-west of France, to 15 years in prison for the rapes and violence against 4 children, including two of his nieces, the former doctor is in the dock from today for facts dating back to the period between 1989 and 2014 in several hospitals in the west of the country, especially in Brittany.

Investigators found traces of the victims, patients who were on average 11 years old when they suffered violence, by going through the surgeon's diaries and agendas, found in his home during a search in 2017.

His writings, very detailed, indicated the name, age and address of the victims, as well as the type of violence inflicted, often covered by medical procedures. Le Scouarnec, in these years of investigations, has defined himself as a "pedophile for decades". He risks an additional sentence of 20 years in prison.