The verdict in the case of largest child sexual abuse in France will be delivered on Wednesday, ending the three -month broadcast.
The former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, faces up to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting 299 victims for three decades, most of them girls and boys whose average age was 11. Many were attacked while they were under the effects of anesthesia or the recovery of surgery, prosecutors said.
Le Scouarnec, the same father of three children, confessed to commit “horrible acts” during the trial in the northwest city of Vannes in the Brittany region, where he admitted many, but not all his positions.
His prayer will be executed simultaneously with the 15 years he is serving after being convicted in 2020 to violate a young neighbor and three others when they were children.
After the lawyers of some of the victims complained that it could be released by 2030 if their preventive detention and their eligibility of probation were taken into account, the Prosecutor’s Office has made the rare request that they will be held in a under supervision treatment center even if it is released.
Many victims have said they do not remember being attacked, but the police were able to build a case against Le Scouarnec because he meticulously cataloged his abuse in digital newspapers.
Hundreds of witnesses testified at the trial, including the niece of Le Scouarnec and a family friend. Now in their 40 years, both said he assaulted them in the early 1980s. However, French law did not allow him to be prosecuted for his alleged abuse because it happened too long ago.
In France it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a child under 15, although children’s defenders say that many adults are never charged.
The case has put a focus on the French medical system, which allowed Le Scouarnec to continue working despite many warning signs, including a sentence in 2005 for possessing images that represent child abuse.
The lawyers of some of the victims have said that the local doctor once respected should have been stripped of their medical privileges after that case. On the other hand, Le Scouarnec worked in nine public hospitals and private clinics in five regions of France, where he specialized in appendectomies, abdominal and gynecological surgery.
The victims’ defenders also expect the case to drive a difficult look at what they call a lax search for accusations of child abuse, particularly when doctors, who are scarce in many areas, are accused of misconduct.
“There were warnings for 30 years,” said Francesca Satta, a lawyer who represented 10 victims and families previously, added: “This man benefited from a system that opened the door to have his own hunting ground.”
During the trial, many victims saw the procedures through a video link in an auditorium of 450 seats, a few steps from the Palace of Justice, which was too small to deal with the number of people who wanted to see how the case were developed. Two other transmission rooms in an old law faculty transmitted the judgment to the media and spectators.
