France takes care of a child abuse test against a former surgeon

A former surgeon who has been accused of abuse of hundreds of young patients often, while under anesthetics, is ready to be tested this month in the most large process of abuse of children in French history.

Joel Le Scouarnec, 73, was accused of attacking or raping 299 children -the greater part of his patients -between 1989 and 2014, mostly in Brittany.

He acknowledged some accusations, but not all.

The process in Vaness, northwestern France, follows a careful police investigation lasting several years.

He is likely to raise uncomfortable questions about whether Le Squarnak was protected by his colleagues and the management of the hospitals who hired him, despite the FBI warning of the French authorities that he had consulted with websites for abuse, after which his only a suspended sentence was given.

The striking number of options for stopping the former surgeon to have contact with children seems to have been missed or rejected.

The members of his own family also knew about the pedophilia of Le Square, but failed to stop him, said.

“It was the family of the family that meant that his abuse was allowed to continue for decades,” said a lawyer involved in the case of the BBC.

Le Scouarnec, once a respected surgeon in the small town, has been in prison since 2017, when he was arrested on suspicion of raping his nephews, now of their 30s, as well as a six-year-old girl and a young patient. In 2020 he was sentenced to a 15 -year prison.

After his arrest, the police searched his home and found sex dolls of the size of children, more than 300,000 images for abuse of children and thousands of pages of thoroughly constructed diaries claiming that Le Squaret had committed attacks he had committed to the young your patients over 25 years old.

He denied an attack or rape of children, arguing that his diaries simply describe his “fantasies” in detail.

In several cases, however, he also wrote: “I’m a pedophile.”

Le Scouarnec faces more than 100 rape allegations and more than 150 allegations of sexual assault.

Some of his ex -patients, who are already adults, said they remember that the surgeon touches them under the guise of medical examinations, sometimes even when their parents or other doctors were in the room.

But since a huge number of his alleged victims were below the effect of anesthetics when it is claimed that the attacks were made, they did not remember the events and were shocked to contact the police and said to their names – together with the graphic Abuse descriptions – It is claimed that he appeared in Le Scouarnec’s diaries.

Le Scouarnec felt “almighty” and liked the feeling of “danger flirting” through “calculated crimes”, says French daily Le Mond, quotes the court order against the former surgeon.

Some of the alleged victims have said that disturbing revelations have helped them make sense of the inexplicable symptoms of trauma that have burden their entire lives.

Lawyer Francesca Sata, who represents several alleged victims, told the BBC that her clients include “the families of two men who remembered and who ultimately take their lives.”

Olivia Mons of the Victima Association of France spoke with many of the alleged victims and said several had blurred memories of events that had never been able to “find words to explain.”

When the surgeon’s case came to light, “this gave them the beginning of an explanation,” said G -Ja Mons.

But she added that most of the alleged victims were people who had no memories of being raped or attacked and who live a simple life before the police contact them. “Today, many of these people are understandably very shaken,” said G -Ja Mons.

A woman told the French media that when police showed her a record under her name in the Le Scouarnec diary, she was immediately flooded. “I had lightning of someone who enters my hospital room, picking up the sheets, saying that he would check that everything was well,” she said. “He raped me.”

Margaux Castex, a lawyer of one of the alleged victims, told the BBC that her client was “traumatized, that he had once given his confidence to a healthcare professional and this is difficult to shake.”

“He wants he was never told what happened,” said G -Kastex.

Another woman named Marie, now a married mother in the mid -thirties, said the police had come to her house and revealed that her name was appearing in a surgeon’s diaries, who was accused of violence against children.

“They read what he wrote about me and I wanted to read it back, but it was impossible,” she told Outlet France Bleu. “Can you imagine reading hardcore pornography and knowing that it’s about you as a child?”

Marie said she had seen mental health professionals for years because of the “problems” she had in terms of men, and that doctors were wondering if she had had a child trauma.

“I have to believe that my memory protected me from this. But (the police) exam brought him back to the surface – images, sensations, memories came back to me day in day,” she said. “Today I feel this as if it just happened.”

Marie added that when she was shown a photo of Le Scouarnec, “Everything came back to me … I remembered his icy look.”

She wondered how the surgeon managed to commit his alleged crimes, unnoticed for so long.

This is a pursuit of a question that must be studied long during the test.

The first court proceedings heard the allegations that several members of the LE Scouarnec family had been aware of their disturbing behavior towards children since the mid-1980s, but did not intervene.

His ex-wife denied knowing what her husband’s father of their three children did, until he was arrested.

Le Scouarnec-Medical specialist and lover of opera and literature-the pride of his family in the middle class is the pride of his family. For many years, he was a respected medical doctor in the small town, which could provide him with a considerable degree of protection in the workplace.

“A huge degree of dysfunction has allowed Le Scouarnec to do his affairs,” lawyer Frederick Benoist told the BBC.

D -Benoist represents the Children’s Protection Group La Voix de l’enfant (the voice of the child), which insists on emphasizing what he calls “decisive institutional and judicial errors”, which allowed Le Scouarnec to continue to abuse children over the continuation decades.

In the early 2000s, a FBI signal for French authorities that Le Scouarnec had access to websites for violence against children, resulted in a four-month suspended sentence without an obligation to follow medical or psychological treatment.

Benoist said prosecutors had never shared this information with the medical authorities and there were no consequences for Le Scouarnec, who continued as a surgeon, often operating for children and managing their subsequent care.

When a colleague – who was already suspected against Le Squarnak – read about the allegations against him in the local press in 2006, he called on the Regional Medical Association to take action.

All, except one doctor who refrained – voted that Le Surnek had not violated the Medical Code of Ethics, which states that doctors “need to be reliable in all circumstances and act with honesty and devotion to debt.” No sanctions were imposed.

“Therefore, we have proof that all these colleagues knew and none of them did nothing,” said Benoist. “There were many circumstances, which meant that he could be stopped; he was not, and the consequences were tragic.”

The BBC addressed both the Regional Medical Association and the prosecutors for comment.

In the end, Le Squarnak was arrested when a six -year -old victim told his parents that he had attacked her. Until then, he lived as a hermit in a large abandoned home, surrounded by dolls the size of children.

Mrs. Driguez, the nephew’s lawyer, was sitting against Le Scouarnec during the 2020 trial in the southwestern city of Saints. “His answers were cold and calculated,” she said. “He is extremely smart, but he does not show any empathy.”

The process has revealed more allegations of abuse of children in the family of Le Square, said G -Ja Driguses, but the former surgeon has never had a particular reaction and has watched the floor at the same time.

At one point, the vessels were shown in the LE Scouarnec and his dolls. “Everyone was looking at the screen, but I was watching it,” said G -Ja Dringez. “Until now, he always held his gaze. But at that moment he looked up, staring carefully at the video. His eyes blinked.”

While the city of Vaness is preparing to host the test, three lecture halls in a former university building nearby are provided for the accommodation of hundreds of alleged casualties, their legal representatives and families. The test begins on February 24 and should continue until June.

Whether the press and the public are authorized will depend on all suspected victims who give up their right to a closed process.

Many lawyers believe that the process can be a moment of reading authorities who have failed to take provisions against Le Scouarnec, as well as an important point for the victims to express their trauma.

Da Sata said that although many people involved in this case have no memory of what happened to them, they are still victims, adding that the former surgeon enjoyed the “impunity of silence” too long.

“The process will be a moment for the victims to speak,” Benoist agreed. “It would be terrible in my eyes if it is held behind closed doors.”