A French court found a retired surgeon guilty on Monday of sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, in a trial that has rocked France and raised questions about the French public health system, Reuters and DPA reported, BTA reported.
Former surgeon Joel Le Squarnec, 74, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday after admitting to sexually abusing 299 patients. In what is considered the worst and largest child abuse trial in France, Le Squarnec admitted that between 1989 and 2014 committed sexual assaults on 158 male patients and 141 female patients with an average age of 11. The trial is also considered the most serious case of paedophilia in France to be heard by a court. Le Squarnec is accused of rape or aggravated sexual assault against 299 victims.
The trial took place in the city of Vannes in the Brittany region of western France.
Prosecutors accused the 74-year-old former surgeon of treating his victims as inanimate objects, showing no empathy and taking advantage of his position as a doctor. He often sexually abused patients who were still under anesthesia or children who were unable to identify his actions as assault.
Le Squarnec told the court that he had committed "disgusting, vile acts" over a 25-year period while working as a doctor in western France. The trial of the retired surgeon has raised uncomfortable questions about France's public health system.
Presiding judge Odd Bouresy, whose voice at times sounded muffled by emotion, said the surgeon had raped his victims when they were most vulnerable, including under anesthesia. "Your actions were a blind spot in the medical world, in that your colleagues, the medical authorities, were unable to stop your actions," she told the defendant.
The court ordered Le Squarnec to be placed on the sex offenders' register. The judge also banned the retired surgeon from practicing his profession or having contact with minors.
During the trial, the former surgeon told the court that the harm he had caused was irreparable. "I must acknowledge to all these people and their loved ones my actions and the consequences of them, which they have suffered and will continue to suffer throughout their lives," he added.
The judge said she understood that many of the victims hoped Le Squarnec would never be released from prison, but that the law did not allow her to impose a life sentence.
The trial came at a time of reckoning for sex crimes in France following the conviction of Dominique Pellicot, who was found guilty last December of drugging his wife unconscious and inviting men to their home to rape her.
Le Squarnec is already serving a prison sentence on previous rape charges. In 2020 He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for raping and sexually assaulting a neighbor's child, as well as two of his nieces and a 4-year-old who was his patient.
Victims and their families have publicly questioned why local and national health authorities failed to stop the surgeon. In 2005, he was convicted of downloading images of child sexual abuse, for which he received a suspended sentence, but he was still able to continue practicing in state hospitals.
Several dozen victims and human rights activists gathered outside the courthouse before the verdict, holding a banner made of hundreds of white papers with black silhouettes - one for each victim. Some of the slips of paper bore a name and age, while others listed the victim as anonymous.
The extent of Le Squarnec’s abuse was revealed after he was re-arrested in 2017 on suspicion of raping a neighbor’s 6-year-old child. Police found electronic diaries detailing more than two decades of rape and sexual assault of underage patients at hospitals in the region, as well as a cache of sex dolls, wigs and child pornography.
The local prosecutor, whose office led the investigation into the surgeon’s case, has launched a separate investigation to determine whether there was criminal liability on the part of agencies or individuals who could have prevented the abuse.