Former French surgeon on trial for raping or abusing 299 children

Le Scouarnec has admitted child abuse dating back to 1985-1986, according to investigation documents. Some cases couldn’t be prosecuted, because the statute of limitations had expired.

The Vannes trial will examine rapes and other abuses committed from 1989 to 2014 on 158 men and 141 women who were age 11 on average at the time.

Victims were stunned about what had happened

The doctor sexually abused both boys and girls when they were alone in their hospital rooms, according to the investigation documents. His strategy was to disguise sexual violence as a medical act, targeting young patients who were less likely to recall what had happened.

“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 at the age of 9 in 1991. “I cried a lot, but I didn’t think something like that had happened to me during this operation.”

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 as I left the lawyer’s office,” she said. “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.”

She also described the emotional toll of the revelation.

“I fell into a deep depression … My family tried to help, but I felt completely alone,” she said.

The Associated Press doesn’t name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly.

Le Scouarnec’s lawyer, Thibaut Kurzawa, told Sud-Ouest newspaper that his client would “answer the judges’ questions” as he decided “to face up to reality.”

The case could have come to light much earlier. Le Scouarnec had already been convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child pornography and sentenced to four months of suspended prison time.

Despite this, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the next year. Because of processing delays, the criminal record check requested by the Health Ministry at the time didn’t include any mention of his past offences.

Even after being informed of his conviction, health authorities and hospital management didn’t pursue disciplinary action.

AP