Accused of abusing 349 children, French surgeon faces trial

SAINTES, France — A retired surgeon accused of sexually abusing as many as 349 young teenagers over decades – primarily his patients, in their clinic rooms — is facing justice at final, within the worst such case to attain to light in France.

The trial opening Friday within the western metropolis of Saintes is handiest the muse, on the other hand.

It concerns four people allegedly targeted by Joel Le Scouarnec, 69, including two of his nieces. Diversified apt complaints in opposition to the doctor beget piled up since the distinctive investigation wrapped up, and prosecutors are making ready extra action after this trial.

The first case reached investigators in 2017, when a 6-twelve months-extinct neighbor told her mother that Le Scouarnec uncovered himself and molested her throughout the fence between their properties.

In hunting Le Scouarnec’s dwelling, investigators uncovered higher than 300,000 photos of exiguous one and various pornography — moreover intensive notebooks where the surgeon detailed sexual violence in opposition to both girls and boys from 1989 to 2017. Subsequent to every exiguous one’s name were comments on the nature of the sexual acts inflicted, consistent with investigators.

Le Scouarnec admitted to investigators that he had “already acted out” with teenagers, including his nieces. He said he space limits for himself, and denied any stout penetration. He claimed his diaries integrated an a part of myth.

The regional prosecutor, Laureline Peyrefitte, told a news conference in December that the selection of “attainable victims of Le Scouarnec’s actions” had reached 349 by that point.

Gendarmes questioned 229 of the people named within the notebooks, and by this month, 200 had filed formal complaints, the prosecutor’s convey of enterprise told The Associated Press. Many incidents occurred too system help to prosecute, on the other hand.

Investigators order that below duvet of medical acts, the doctor sexually took befriend of teenagers as quickly as they were alone in their clinic room. They are saying his blueprint became to lumber off sexual violence as an authority gesture, and to concentrate on patients so young they would possibly per chance well per chance no longer be aware or realize what became going on.

He also targeted older teenagers within the working room, after they were asleep or below anesthesia, consistent with his diaries.

With victims so young, or unconscious, Le Scouarnec became ready to act without aggression or threats, prosecutors order. And so decades later, there would possibly be now not any longer a system to mark for sperm or DNA.

Critics quiz why nothing came out earlier than. The surgeon had already been sentenced in 2005 to a four-month suspended detention center sentence for possession and importation of a kid pornographic image.

The trial opening Friday concerns the neighbor, two nieces, and a exiguous one who became hospitalized at age 4 for acute pancreatitis within the establishment where the surgeon practiced.

Le Scouarnec faces as much as 20 years in detention center if convicted.