Joel Le Scouarnec: France faces its greatest judgment of child abuse, weeks after the country was shaken in the case of Pelicot

Editor’s note: This article contains distressing details from the beginning.

Paris
CNN
–

The numbers involved in the largest child abuse of France are amazing: 299 alleged victims, sexually abused in nine hospitals for 25 years, all by a doctor, prosecutors say.

When the judicial case began on Monday in Morbihan, Brittany, with the gastrointestinal surgeon retired Joel Le Scouarnec accused of decades of abuse, many expected the trial to mark a turning point in the calculation of France with child abuse.

From 1986 to 2014, the former surgeon, who is now 74 years old and served a 15 -year prison sentence for a prior sentence for the violation and abuse of children, submitted patients from the hospital of only two years until adulthood until adulthood To sexual abuse, including rape in the Brittany region. From France, they allege judicial documents. Le Scouarnec was used in private and public institutions despite being convicted of possession of child abuse images in 2005.

The documents alleged that Le Scouarnec told the researchers that “he did not remember (the alleged assaults) individually,” but “he had been able to commit a sexual touch and penetrations in some of his patients, and in particular the children.”

Beyond the trial, he was sentenced in 2020 for abusing his nieces and a neighbor outside a hospital. More than a dozen patients sought to join the current case against them, but were prohibited by French law since their claims exceeded the statute of limitations of 30 years.

The trial, which is expected to last four months, has already captured national attention, only weeks after a horrible and the judgment of mass violation and drugs shook France. Gisele Pelicot victim became a powerful symbol In the fight to change shame around sexual abuse In the perpetrators.

Many expect this trial for child abuse to have a similar purpose, helping to achieve a painful calculation with the problem in France and institutions and culture that may have helped such crimes to run out of control for so long.

“Why do some of my victims speak in the press?” The lawyer Francesca Satta, who represents several of the alleged victims, told CNN: “It is because they are part of this movement that silence is no longer an option.”

The alleged older victims are now almost 50 years old, while the youngest is 17 years old.

Such is the scale of the trial, a university conference room has been requested near the court to accommodate 400 people, including alleged victims, their families, lawyers and media.

It is not the first time that Le Scouarnec has been before a court for charges related to child abuse.

In 2005, he was convicted of possession of children’s abuse images, after a FBI tip when he enrolled on a website to share pedophilia. His four -month prison sentence was suspended.

Le Scouarnec was sentenced in 2020 in western France for violation of a minor and possession of child abuse images, receiving a 15 -year sentence, after sexually abusing the daughter of her neighbors through her rear fence. He has been imprisoned since that trial.

Searches for their property and hospital office increased their newspapers and about 70 dolls the size of a child, with which researchers believe that “he shared his daily life” before his arrest, name them, dress and use them for their sexual pleasure .

On the contrary, Le Scouarnec “had no empathy, or emotion, or feeling towards a small human being, who literally considered a sexual object,” Francesca Satta, a lawyer of several of the accusers of her last judgment for abuse, told CNN.

Delphine Driguez, a lawyer who represented the survivors of his abuse in his 2020 trial, agreed with this evaluation of Le Scouarnec. “He is an extremely cold man, without empathy, very deliberate,” he said.

SATTA said that the state of Le Scouarnec as middle -class surgeon had probably helped him evade suspicion for so long, adding that in court, the accused’s true nature would be exhibited for all.

During the 2020 trial, she watched him while the court room was shown images taken from her computer.

“That’s when you discover the real Joël Le Scouarnec. Because the look changes, ”he said.

At least three doctors alerted the authorities about concerns about Le Scouarnec, according to judicial documents and one of the doctors interviewed by CNN.

After the condemnation of Le Scouarnec in 2005, Thierry Bonvalot, a psychiatrist who also works at the Quimperlé hospital in Brittany with Le Scouarnec, said he faced him.

“I told him that it was dangerous and that his place was not in the hospital. I asked him to give up, ”he told CNN.

After a long silence, his head in his hands, Le Scouarnec replied: “You can’t get me.”

The evidence in the center of the last case will be the newspapers of Le Scouarnec, according to prosecutors, represent real events in which they were abused of children. His lawyer says they detail the fantasies on which he did not act.

So complete are that a diary discovered during the 2020 trial, often pointing out the time and place of the violations, the identity of the victim and even their address, helped researchers identify the vertiginous number of their alleged violations.

The judicial documents presented by the Prosecutor’s Office noticed that he admitted that the magazine began in 1990, regularly writing until 2016, a year before his retirement, with 40 to more than 100 pages of tickets per year.

Tickets describe abuse, generally during an alleged medical examination, which are reproduced with false medical pretexts so as not to alarm their patients, according to the documents.

The intimate tone of his writings is especially chilling, addressing the entries to the children with their name, “little Marie, once again you were alone in your room”, an account begins, speak directly to them and put an end to many entries: descriptions of sexual acts about a child – with: “I love you.”

Le Scouarnec’s lawyers told CNN that he was not commenting on the press before trial. However, their lawyers have described in the past magazines as fantasies. According to the court documents, the defendant said he did not remember individual events in his newspapers, although he did not deny having written them.

In multiple daily tickets included in judicial documents, Le Scouarnec admits to be a pedophile.

For the survivors of the alleged abuse of Le Scouarnec, the years have passed have been traumatic.

Although many of the children were under sedation during the alleged abuse, the effect on their lives has been too tangible, according to court documents. The documents describe psychological analysis of the alleged victims that often show persistent problems, especially in their subsequent sexual relations and their self -confidence, after their hospitalizations under Le Scouarnec.

“We have victims in real and genuine suffering. We have anorexic, depressed people, who cannot have children, who cannot have sex with their partner. These are all these anomalies in quotes, inexplicable by their doctors, who say to themselves: “How is this possible?” SATTA lawyer said. Among which she represents there are two families of men who had supposedly abused Le Scouarnec and died for suicide years later.

Given the life of abusing that Le Scouarnec is accused, some of the testimonies of the survivors are no longer admissible in court. The Statute of Limitations of France restricts the prosecutions of rape at 30 years after the victim reaches adulthood, which means that around 80 people were not included in the case, SATTA said.

As Justice continues its course, a question revolves in the case: how was he allegedly able to take advantage of so many young people for so long?

CNN has communicated with hospitals where French health crimes and authorities were supposedly committed to comment.