A FORMER French surgeon was to go on trial Monday charged with raping or sexually assaulting almost 300 patients, most of them children and some of them unconscious at the time.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, is already in jail after being found guilty in 2020 of abusing four children, including two of his nieces.
In the latest trial, he faces allegations that he assaulted or raped 299 patients, many while waking up from anaesthetic or during post-op checkups, at a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014.
Some 256 of the victims were under 15, with the youngest aged one and the oldest 70.
It was not known whether Le Scouarnec would admit the charges at the trial in the western city of Vannes that is likely to be a new shock for France.
The proceedings come just two months after Dominique Pelicot was convicted of enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife Gisele Pelicot, who has since divorced him and become a feminist hero for refusing to be ashamed.
Like Pelicot, Le Scouarnec documented his crimes, noting his victims’ names, ages and addresses and the nature of the abuse.
In his notes, the doctor described himself as a “major pervert” and a “paedophile.”
“And I am very happy about it,” he recorded.
The trial will be held in public, but seven days of testimony from victims who were targeted while minors will be held behind closed doors.
If convicted, Le Scouarnec faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. French law does not allow sentences to be added together even when there are multiple victims.
“This is undoubtedly the biggest case of child sex crime in France, or at least the case involving the most victims sexually assaulted or raped by a single man,” French daily Le Figaro cited a person familiar with the matter as saying.
