A French court has sentenced Joël Le Scouarnec, the former surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, mostly children, to the maximum 20 years in jail. The trial has highlighted failures in France's health system.
A court in Vannes, Brittany, found Le Scouarnec guilty of 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults, committed between 1989 and 2014.
He was sentenced to 20 years in jail – the maximum penalty for rape.
The abuse is considered France's worst case of pedocriminality to go to trial. Many of his victims were under anaesthesia or waking up from surgery. Of the 299 victims, 256 were under the age of 15.
Le Scouarnec had admitted the charges during a closed-door session in March.
Wednesday's verdict concludes a three-month trial that has shaken France and highlighted systemic failings in the public health system.
Le Scouarnec stood emotionless in court while judge Aude Burési delivered the sentencing. His lawyers said he would not appeal the verdict.
Burési said the court had taken into account the fact that the former surgeon had sought out unwell, vulnerable and sedated victims.
While he will not be able to ask for parole until two-thirds of his sentence is served, the court rejected a rare demand from prosecutors that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision on his release, citing his age and "desire to make amends”.
At the start of the trial in February he said: "I'm aware that the harm I've caused is beyond repair. 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."
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No lessons drawn
Le Scouarnec is already serving jail time for earlier rape convictions. In 2020, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the rape and sexual assault of a child neighbour, as well as his two nieces and a 4-year-old patient.
Victims and their families have publicly asked why French health authorities allowed Le Scouarnec to get away with the abuse for so long. Despite a conviction for downloading child pornography in 2005, the surgeon continued to treat children in public hospitals.
Victims of the Joel Le Scouarnec Collective were angry that the trial had not drawn much attention from politicians or the public at large.
"No lesson has been drawn from this, neither from the medical world nor from politicians," the group said in a statement.
Several dozen members of the collective gathered outside the courthouse ahead of the verdict, holding a banner made of hundreds of pieces of white paper with black silhouettes, one for each victim. Some of the papers bore a first name and age, while others referred to the victim as "Anonymous".
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Decades of abuse
The extent of Le Scouarnec's abuse was revealed after his re-arrest in 2017 on suspicion of raping his 6-year-old neighbour.
Police uncovered a cache of sex dolls, wigs, and child pornography at his home, along with electronic diaries in which he had meticulously detailed nearly three decades of alleged rapes and sexual assaults on hundreds of young patients across various hospitals.
"I am a paedophile and a child rapist," Le Scouarnec said during his final statements to the court last week.
"What I've witnessed [in court] is the suffering for which I am responsible," he said, adding that he neither wanted nor expected to be given any leniency.
In a statement in March, the National Order of Doctors, which has also filed a lawsuit against Le Scouarnec, expressed its "profound regret" that the surgeon had not been "prevented from practicing".
The local prosecutor has opened a separate investigation to establish if there was any criminal liability by agencies or individuals who could have prevented the abuse.
The trial took place at a time of reckoning around sex crimes in France after the conviction of Dominique Pelicot, who was found guilty in December of drugging his wife unconscious and inviting dozens of men to their home to rape her.
Some victims rights groups expressed frustration that the Le Scouarnec case had not received the same attention or had the same impact as the Pelicot trial.
(with newswires)
