The Largest Child Sexual Abuse Trial in French History Was the Result of the Dysfunction of the Country’s Judicial System and the Criminal Negligence of the Forces of Law and Order

 

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have learned that one of the most shocking trials in the history of the country will begin on February 24, 2025 in the French city of Vannes. In the dock will be 73-year-old Joël Le Scouarnec, a former surgeon accused of sexualized abuse of 299 children between 1989 and 2014. The average age of the victims was 11 years old. The Foundation’s experts believe that this trial is the result of criminal negligence by France’s law enforcement agencies and serious dysfunction in both its judicial and health care systems, which allowed the pedophile surgeon to rape hundreds of young patients over decades.

In France, former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec will stand trial on charges of sexually abusing hundreds of minors. Many of the victims were allegedly under anesthesia. The case is being called the largest child abuse case in the nation’s history. Le Skuarnec is accused of sexually abusing 299 patients, 158 males and 141 females, between 1989 and 2014. A total of 256 of them were under the age of 15, with an average age of 11. Most of the victims were his former patients. Joël Le Scouarnec, 73, worked as a surgeon in public and private hospitals throughout Brittany and western France.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice say the horrifying testimony of a record number of alleged victims of a pedophile surgeon raises serious concerns not only about the level of child protection in France, but also about the apparent crisis of the French justice and health systems.

Frédéric Benoit, a lawyer for La Voix de L’Enfant (The Voice of the Child), the child protection charity acting as a civil party in the case, called shocking the “chain of failures and dysfunction” at the institutional level that allowed Le Scouarnec to continue committing crimes for years. Benoit filed a separate court complaint on behalf of the charity for failing in its duty to protect children at the institutional level.

According to Benoit, when agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation first informed French authorities in 2004 about the Internet activity of Le Scouarnec, who was found to be viewing child abuse images, he was not arrested. A search of his home turned up no evidence. But police did not search his hospital office, where they could have found images on his work computer and sex toys hidden in a closet. It wasn’t until 2005 that Le Skuarnec was convicted of accessing child abuse images on the Internet and given a four-year suspended sentence. However, the judge did not order him to undergo psychiatric treatment or ban him from working with children. The court, contrary to the rules, did not immediately inform the hospital system or the National Medical Board. In addition, a doctor at the hospital where Le Scouarnec worked warned management in 2006 about his strange behavior and suspicious tendencies. Another emergency room physician also reported that Le Skuarnec viewed child abuse images while working. Nevertheless, Le Skuarnec continued to receive prestigious positions at hospitals across the country.  (more...)

The Largest Child Sexual Abuse Trial in French History Was the Result of the Dysfunction of the Country’s Judicial System and the Criminal Negligence of the Forces of Law and Order