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A former French surgeon has gone on trial accused of raping or sexually abusing 299 victims — mostly children — under his care. Joel Le Scouarnec is facing what’s being called one of France’s most shocking child abuse trials.
Louis-Marie, 35, is one of 299 people who were allegedly raped or sexually assaulted by Le Scouarnec. She told Reuters that his decision to testify publicly drew inspiration from the courage of Gisele Pelicot, who last year waived her right to anonymity when she testified against her estranged husband who invited dozens of strangers to their home to rape her over years.
“There has been the #MeToo movement, there has been Mrs Pelicot who was extremely brave, and I think she’s right, it’s not for us victims to feel shame,” Louis-Marie told Reuters.
“I don’t want this for my children,” said Louis-Marie, who wants to help end the silence around sexual abuse.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has admitted to many of the charges but denies others. “I committed odious acts,” the former surgeon told the court in Vannes. “They were only children.”
A search of his home uncovered more than 300,000 photos and 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile and detailed his actions, according to investigation documents.
The retired surgeon faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, on top of 15 years he has been serving after being found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault of children.
“I am aware that these injuries are irreparable,” he said. “I cannot go back in time, but I owe it to all of these people and their loved ones to take responsibility for my actions.”
Le Scouarnec’s history raises ethical questions about how he was allowed to continue working despite being convicted back in for consuming child pornography. He still kept his job as a surgeon in Quimperle public hospital until his arrest in 2017.
Some survivors have no memory of the assaults, being unconscious at the time. “I didn’t really remember the operation. I remembered the post-operation, a surgeon who was quite mean,” one of the victims, Amélie Lévêque, recalled of her time in the hospital when she was 9 years old in 1991. “I cried a lot.”
Years later, she described feeling overwhelmed when she learned that her name appeared in Le Scouarnec’s notebooks.
“That was the beginning of the answers to a lifetime of questions, and then it was the beginning of the descent into hell,” she told public broadcaster France 3. “I felt like I had lost control of everything. I wasn’t crazy, but now I had to face the truth of what had happened.”
“I fell into a deep depression. … My family tried to help, but I felt completely alone,” Lévêque added.
Outside the French court, activists are lined up demanding justice, holding signs reading: “Impunity is over” and “Silence = Violence.” Survivors and child protection groups are pushing for accountability, hoping the trial will mark the end of the culture of silence that has allowed such abuse to go unchecked for years.
Some child protection groups joined the proceedings as civil parties, saying they hope to toughen the legal framework to prevent such abuse.
