A few months after the Gisèle Pelicot affair which rocked France, Joël Le Scouarnec is accused of having raped or abused 299 victims, mostly young children at the time.
The largest trial in France for sexual abuse on minors opened up on Monday in Brittany: Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is accused of having raped or abused 299 victims.
The former surgeon is accused of having mainly Targeted with children’s patients, who were an average of 11 years old at the time of alleged abuses that spread over a period of 25 years, from 1989 to 2014.
“I committed ignoble acts”said Joël Le Scouarnec when he opened his trial on Monday. “I am perfectly aware that these injuries are indelible, irreparable”.
One of his alleged victims, Annabelle (whose first name was changed for reasons of confidentiality), was summoned in 2019 by police investigators for a hearing that was going to change her life.
“She discovered that Joël Le Scouarnec had raped her when she was 11 years old when she was treated for hospital appendicitis”explained to Euronews Gwendoline Tenier, Annabelle’s lawyer.
The incident occurred in 2001 in a Breton hospital where Annabelle’s mother worked as a nursing assistant and where the accused has been practicing for years, according to the lawyer.
Joël Le Scouarnec risks 20 years in prison
The retired surgeon is accused of having disguised the abuses he committed as medical acts, targeting young patients.
Many victims claim Having no memory of the attacks, which would have occurred when they were unconscious or under general anesthesia.
“At the beginning, Annabelle did not realize that the documents read by the police were talking about her, or that the legal jargon said in reality that she had been raped”specifies Gwendoline Tenier.
The rapes and other abuses that Joël Le Scouarnec would have committed 158 male victims and 141 women’s victims will be examined during the trial.
The former surgeon risks up to 20 years in prison if he is found guiltya sentence that would be added to the 15 years he has served since he was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault on four children.
Among the victims were his six -year -old neighbor, a four -year -old patient and two of her own nieces, who were only four years old when the abuses started.
A seven -year long investigation
The trial, which should last four months, is the culmination of a seven-year long investigation, which started when a six-year-old neighbor told his parents that Joël Le Scouarnec had touched him over the fence which separated their properties.
The police then searched the surgeon’s home and discovered His diary in which he would have meticulously listed cases of rape and abuse, as well as the names of the victims. In one of his notebooks, he would have written: “I am a pedophile and I will always be”.
A collection of dolls, naked children’s drawings and hard drives containing at least 300,000 photos and videos of sexual abuse has also been discovered in their property, according to investigation documents.
Joël Le Scouarnec had been sentenced in 2005 to four months suspended prison sentence for detention and import of child porn. This conviction had been pronounced after the FBI informed the French authorities that its credit card had been used to access a Russian Stefsxual abuse site on the “Dark Web”.
Although one of the colleagues of Joël Le Scouarnec denounced it to the order of French doctors in 2006, no measure was taken later. In 2008, he was appointed hospital practitioner at Jonzac hospital in Charente-Maritime.
The accused says he is ready to “face facts”
Joël Le Scouarnec told the court on Monday thatHe admitted having committed rapes and sexual assaults. But he claims to remember everything, and considers himself not guilty of certain crimes.
His lawyer, Thibaut Kurzawa, told the French newspaper Sud-Ouest before the trial that his client “would answer questions from judges” Because he had decided to “face facts”.
This trial comes as activists strive to Raise the taboos that have long surrounded sexual abuse in France, a few months after the Mazan rape affair. Dominique Pelicot and dozens of other men were sentenced in December to sentences ranging from three to twenty years in prison for having drugged and raped Gisèle Pelicot several times.
Many activists and lawyers are protested that Joël Le Scouanec has been able to abuse his victims for more than ten years despite his previous conviction and the warning of one of his colleagues to the order of doctors.
“His status as a surgeon allowed him not to be questioned”says Gwendoline Tenier, Anabelle’s lawyer. “If he had not had this work, he would not have had access to all his victims, but his entourage could not ignore what was going on”.
Concerns about victim assistance
Some lawyers also have Accused France Victims – The French Service for Aid for Victims who works on behalf of the Ministry of Justice – to miss your duties.
Lawyer Marie Grimaud, who represents a collective of 37 victims, told French radio RLT that France victims had “badly treated” its customers.
Gwendoline Tenier has a similar accusation: “My client (Annabelle) has never been called by France victims after the brief hearing of 30 minutes she had with the investigators”.
“France victims must be proactive by contacting the victims. My client needed to understand what the legal jargon meant by the investigators read her, but also to know what measures she should take after receiving this new shocking”said the lawyer in Euronews.
The organization has declared to Euronews that she had done everything possible to help the alleged victims of Joël Le Scouarnec.
“We were proactive but we are limited by budgetary issues, we help 1.5 million victims each year in France, but we do not have the means to help 5 million victims”says the service spokesperson, Jerôme Moreau.
There Civise (Independent commission on incest and sexual violence against children) indicates that 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence each year in France. In total, 5.5 million victims were abused during their childhood, most often within their family or their close entourage, according to the organization.