The former surgeon admits ‘despicable acts’ in the largest child abuse trial in France

A former French surgeon accused of abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, has told a court that admits to having “committed despicable acts” and “understands and shares the suffering” caused to their alleged victims.

Joel Le Scouarnec is accused of assaulting or violating 299 patients, the vast majority under 15 years, between 1989 and 2014, mainly in Brittany.

“I am perfectly aware that these wounds are indelible, out of repair,” said Le Scouarnec, in a detailed but clear voice.

The 74 -year -old white hair, who wore glasses and a black sweater with a gray shirt, was heading to the court in Vannes, northwest of France, the first day of the largest child abuse of childhood abuse in French history.

WARNING: This story contains anguishing details

“I cannot return, but I owe (the victims) and their relatives admit my actions and the consequences they had and that will undoubtedly continue to have throughout their lives,” Le Scouarnec told the court.

Throughout the day, which was mainly dedicated to technical procedures, it had seemed attentive but did not have a particular reaction when two visibly nervous men of 30 years took the position to identify themselves as their victims.

The youngest of the alleged victims of Le Scouarnec was an age and the oldest 70s.

The police were able to identify them thanks to the meticulously compiled newspapers in which he alleges that Skouarnec had registered assaults he made to his young patients for more than 25 years.

He has already been imprisoned since 2017 for abusing four children, of which he was convicted in 2020.

Many of the plaintiffs were supposedly abused while they were under anesthesia or recovered from surgeries in hospitals throughout the north of France, which means that some of them did not remember the abuse that is said to be suffered, and had to be said by Police that their names appeared in the newspapers of Le Scouarnec.

“Everything in this terrible story is out of the ordinary … it was not the victims who approached the investigators, but the investigators who alerted the victims,” ​​said prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger in the Court.

“Many of them had no memory … several would have followed without knowing it. But silence had reigned for too long.”

Many other people, who remember to have been abused, have said that the impact of events has followed their entire lives, in many cases, resulting in severe psychological trauma.

Mauricette Vinet, the grandmother of a patient from Le Scouarnec who committed suicide a few years ago, told the BBC that her grandson Mathis had been “murdered” by the alleged abuse of Le Scouarnec.

“If it hadn’t happened, Mathis would still be here,” he said.

The defense lawyer Maxime Tissier told the trial on Monday that Le Scouarnec admitted to the “vast majority” of the charges against him and that his client soon “explained” regarding the accusations.

“He is a defendant who has made himself completely available to the court … despite his age,” Tissier said.

Le Scouarmec added in court that during his police exams he did everything possible to “admit the events that constituted violation and those that, in my opinion, did not.”

Dozens of lawyers were also present in the Court, but the hundreds of alleged victims who represent were sitting in a separate overflow due to their large number. Several psychologists and emotional support dogs will be present during the course of the trial.

Aude Buresi, the president judge, read a graphic and exhausting summary of the charges against Le Scouarnec, as well as the extracts of his interrogations in 2020, in which the former surgeon initially denied that his newspapers reflect the abuses of real life and simply simply were requirements. of his “fantasies.”

But Mrs. Bulesi said that several elements, including the level of detail and the choice of the words used by Le Scouarnec, indicated that the newspapers were probably sincere.

In his brief statement to the Court on Monday, the former surgeon referred to his writings as “very violent.”

An hour before the procedures began some dozen protesters organized a rally outside the courtroom, carrying letters spelling the phrase “stop the code of silence”, while another sign said “Who knew?”

Victims and child defense groups have said that “systemic failures” allowed Le Scouarnec to continue working with children.

In 2005, the FBI warned the French authorities that he had been accessing child abuse websites, but this simply resulted in a suspended sentence and did not face consequences in the workplace.

Later, when Le Scouarnec was working at the Quimperlé hospital, he allegedly made sexually charged comments on a young patient of his, which increased the suspicions of a colleague who alerted the regional medical association and made them aware of the suspended sentence.

The members of the association were summoned and all but a doctor, who abstained, voted that Le Scouarnec had not violated the medical code of ethics. The BBC has approached the Regional Medical Association for comments.

The association is now pressing charges against Le Scouarnec for “Pursuing the medical profession,” the body’s secretary, Didier Robin on Monday, on Monday.

His statement caused a rapid refutation of lawyer Frédéric Benoist, who represents a group of child protection defense La Voix de l’encant (La Voz del Niño) and previously told the BBC that Le Scouarnec could commit his actions due to ” A great degree of dysfunction “among medical professionals.

Benoist said it was “morally indecent and legally questionable” that the medical association was allowed to be listed as a plaintiff. “It is unacceptable that (the association) sits next to the victims,” ​​he said.

Monday’s session closed early, something that is unlikely to happen again during the trial, which will be executed at a tight schedule and will end in June.

At the request of the plaintiffs, some sessions will be held behind closed doors, but the big parts will be open to journalists and members of the public.

The ex -wife of Le Scouarnec and his brothers will be heard in court on Tuesday.

When asked why he attended procedures that will undoubtedly include sordid details and abuse graphics, a woman queuing to enter the overflow room told the BBC that he wanted to see “this doctor, this man Everyman.”

“I want to see what human nature can be able, because all this is beyond me,” he said.