Weeks after a mass rape trial involving a man who drugged his wife and brought strangers home to assault her, France is again reeling as a new alleged predator appears in court.
A trial is underway in Vannes, France, of 74-year-old Joel Le Scouarnec, a former surgeon accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 people, almost all of them children who were his patients. It is the biggest trial related to alleged child sex abuse in France – and one of the biggest in the world.Â
His ex-wife, Marie-France Le Scouarnec, took the stand on Wednesday – and denied she had any knowledge of her husband’s activities. “There was nothing that could have made me think that. Nothing,” she told the court.Â
“I never had an inkling. It’s so huge, so unthinkable, inconceivable that my husband could have done all that,” she said.
The alleged assaults took place over 25 years, between 1989 and 2014, according to the prosecution. The average age of the children — both girls and boys — was 11.
The prosecution claims many of the victims were still under anesthesia or just coming out of it when they were assaulted. Others were barely awake in their hospital beds as the surgeon allegedly assaulted them as he made his early morning rounds.
On the first day of the trial, which started on Monday, Le Scouarnec told the court he had “committed heinous acts.” His lawyer said he admitted to carrying out “the vast majority” of the assaults of which he is accused.
“I owe it to all these people and their loved ones to take responsibility for my actions and the consequences they may have had,” Le Scouarnec told the court.
The alleged abuse of Le Scouarnec’s former patients only came to light in 2017, after his neighbors’ 6-year-old daughter told her parents he had exposed himself and touched her through the fence that divided their gardens.
During a search of his home, police said they discovered hard drives containing more than 300,000 photos and videos depicting child sex abuse. They also found notebooks with meticulous records of the alleged abuse of child patients.
That investigation led to his conviction in December 2020 for the sexual abuse of four little girls: the young neighbor, a 4-year-old patient and two of his nieces. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
On Thursday, the former surgeon’s sister, the mother of the two nieces, took the stand — and accused his ex-wife of “cruelty” and “lies.” The woman, Annie, whose last name was not made public at the trial, said Marie-France Le Scouarnec knew that her husband abused his nieces, which Marie-France Le Scouarnec had denied in court.
Annie said the youngest of her two daughters confided in her in October 2000 that Le Scouarnec had sexually abused her. She told the court that her brother admitted the assault to her, and said that his wife was aware of what had happened.
In 2005, Le Scouarnec was convicted of possession of child sexual abuse images, after an FBI investigation into an international network. He was given a four-year suspended sentence. The court did not order any psychological followup or restriction on his work.
Le Scouarnec told investigators that even though he told his employers at a hospital in Quimperlé about the conviction, no particular measures were taken.Â
During his career, Le Scouarnec worked in a number of hospitals across Brittany, a region in western France where his trial is being held. That has led many to question how he could have carried out so many alleged rapes and assaults without an alarm being raised.
Investigators said that few of the victims had any memory of the alleged assaults. For many of them, it came as a complete shock when police contacted them with evidence of what had happened, as recounted in the surgeon’s journals.
Outside the courthouse Monday, a small group of protesters brandished placards denouncing “more than 20 years of silence” about the surgeon’s past. Â
The trial is set to last four months. During that time, the 299 alleged victims — who are now men and women — will be called on to recount what they can remember of their interactions with Le Scouarnec, who faces 20 years in prison if convicted.
contributed to this report.