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ER Editor: UPDATE — while preparing this story below, the verdict has come in – a sentence of 20 years, with a possibility of parole by 2030 in view of time already served. See this BBC report from two hours ago —
French paedophile surgeon who abused hundreds sentenced to 20 years in jail
Joel Le Scouarnec, the former surgeon who has admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, mostly children, between 1989 and 2014 has been sentenced to a maximum term of 20 years in jail. …
The sentence has a mandatory minimum term of two-thirds – and because Le Scouarnec has already served seven years, he may be eligible for parole by 2030.
Amélie Lévêque, one of Le Scouarnec’s victims, said: “To think one day he could walk down the street, see people – that upsets me. We [the victims] no longer have a normal life while they’re giving him back that life, and that disgusts me.”
“Twenty years is little compared to the number of victims in this trial,” said Francesca Satta, a lawyer for some of the victims. “It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences.” …Le Scouarnec, 74, has been dubbed France’s most prolific paedophile. He is already in jail after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. …
The trial has sparked fury that Le Scouarnec got away with the abuse for over fifteen years, and that he was allowed to continue to treat children despite a conviction in 2005 for downloading paedophile images.
The Victims of Joel Le Scouarnec Collective group lamented that the trial had failed to capture the attention of politicians and society at large.
“No lesson has been drawn from this, neither from the medical world nor from politicians,” the group said in a statement. Several victims held a protest in front of the courthouse ahead of the verdict being delivered on Wednesday afternoon.
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We had published this originally on jailed pedophile surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, whose trial on many counts of rape and sexual assault of children over 35 years is concluding today. See this from February of this year —
France prepares for trial of surgeon accused of abusing anaesthetised children
🇫🇷 Just months after the #Pelicot case, another shocking rape trial has rocked #France.
Former surgeon Joël Le #Scouarnec was accused of sexually abusing and raping 299 victims across dozens of hospitals in western France, over the course of 30 years, as @lizakaminov reports 👇 pic.twitter.com/UwzoSWnIOO
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) May 27, 2025
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This from Andrew Harding of the BBC from three days ago —
Victims in landmark child abuse trial ask why France doesn’t want to know
Ms Lemoine and some 50 other victims, stung by an apparent lack of public interest in the trial, have formed their own campaign group to pressure the French authorities, accusing the government of ignoring a “landmark” case which exposed a “true laboratory of institutional failures”.
The group has questioned why a parliamentary commission has not been set up, as in other high-profile abuse cases, and spoken of being made to feel “invisible”, as if “the sheer number of victims prevented us from being recognised.”
Some of the victims, most of whom had initially chosen to testify anonymously, have now decided to reveal their identities in public – even posing for photos on the courthouse steps – in the hope of jolting France into paying more attention and, perhaps, learning lessons about a culture of deference that helped a prestigious surgeon to rape with impunity for decades.
The name of a very brave woman is mentioned in these articles, that of Dominique Pelicot, who endured a decade of serial rape by many men while drugged, organized by her own husband. She chose to reveal her identity in the hope of waking people up. See —
Gisèle Pelicot held trial in public to force debate on rape culture, say lawyers
And
Rape trial spark demos, shed light on France’s ‘sexist and misogynistic’ culture
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French court to sentence former surgeon who abused children for decades
Biggest child abuse trial in French history reveals decades of medical oversight failures
ANGELIQUE CHRISAFIS for THE GUARDIAN
A former French surgeon is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for the sexual abuse of hundreds of patients mostly aged under 15, as the biggest child abuse trial in French history ends.
Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, worked as a digestive surgeon in public and private hospitals across Brittany and the west of France, often operating on children with appendicitis.
During the harrowing three-month trial in Vannes, Brittany, he was accused of 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults between 1989 and 2014 at a dozen hospitals. Many of the children he assaulted were under anaesthetic or waking up after operations. Some were assaulted in their hospital beds. The average age of the child victims was 11.
Le Scouarnec eventually admitted all the assaults in court, saying in his final statement: “I am not asking the court for leniency.” During the trial he said: “I was a surgeon who benefited from my status to attack children, I don’t deny that.” Psychological assessments found that he remained extremely dangerous.
Le Scouarnec’s lawyer, Maxime Tessier, told the court: “He is utterly guilty.” Tessier said the French medical world and politicians must now learn lessons from “the major disfunction of our health system”, which had not stopped Le Scouarnec’s decades of abuse.
Le Scouarnac was flagged to the French authorities by the FBI in 2004 for viewing child abuse imagery on the dark web. In 2005, he was convicted in a French court of owning child abuse imagery and given a four-year suspended prison sentence, but the court did not rule that the surgeon should never work with children.
He continued to gain prestigious jobs in hospitals across the country until his retirement in 2017, systematically abusing children who had undergone surgery.
Victims’ groups and child protection campaigners said the trial had raised the issue of serious failings by the state and officials. They said there should be a full government assessment of how the surgeon had been able to continue working and abusing for so long.
The 20-year prison sentence is the maximum Le Scouarnec can receive for aggravated rape. In France, sentences are not added together, unlike in the US where Le Scouarnec would have been jailed for 2,000 years, according to the state prosecutor, Stéphane Kellenberger.
Le Scouarnec is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children.
Kellenberger said there was likely to be a further trial after the prosecutor’s office opened an investigation to find more victims whose abuse is not part of the current case.
“You were the devil and sometimes the devil is dressed in a white coat,” Kellenberger told Le Scouarnec.
Le Scouarnec, whose 2005 conviction was not automatically flagged to hospitals where he worked, was employed at a series of regional hospitals that depended on having surgeons of his expertise in order to stay open.
In one instance, Le Scouarnec had told Michèle Cals, the then-director of the Jonzac hospital in western France, about his 2005 conviction, saying he had only viewed child abuse imagery because he was upset about separating from his wife. Cals received no word from her medical hierarchy not to hire him, so she appointed him in 2008. “We were in need of surgeons,” Cals told the court.
Cals said Le Scouarnec’s 2005 sentencing had not prohibited him from being around minors. She told the court she “didn’t dig deep enough” and recognised there had been a “disfunction” on her part, and her superiors.
Thierry Bonvalot, a hospital psychiatrist who had tried to raise the alarm about Le Scouarnec’s 2005 conviction at one hospital where the surgeon later worked, said there had been a medical “fiasco”.
Joël Belloc, the head of the Order of Physicians in Charente-Maritime, where Le Scouarnec finished his career, was asked if he could have done things differently. He said: “With hindsight, it’s obvious we could have.” He added that “perceptions were different” at the time.
About 20 victims of Le Scouarnec and their relatives staged a protest outside the court earlier this month over what they called the “silence of the political world”…. ER: See BBC article linked to above
CONTINUE READING HERE
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