Joel Le Scouarnec: France is facing the largest process of child abuse, a few weeks after the country was shaken by the case

Editor’s note: This article contains details in difficulty from the beginning.

Paris
CNN
–

The numbers involved in the largest process of children abuse in France are amazing: 299 alleged victims, sexually abused in 10 hospitals and clinics over 25 – all by a doctor, prosecutors say.

As the court of the court started on Monday in Morbihan, Brittany, with the retired gastrointestinal surgeon, Joel Le Scouarnec, accused for decades, many have hoped that the trial will mark a turning point in the abuse of France.

From 1986 to 2014, the former surgeon, 74 years ago and executed a sentence of 15 years in prison for a prior sentence for rape and abuse of children, subjected to hospital patients from two years to early adulthood, to sexual abuse, Including rape throughout the Brittany region of France, I support the judicial documents. The Scouarnec was employed in private and public institutions, despite being convicted of having children abuse in 2005.

The documents claimed that he told them that he told investigators that he “did not remember (alleged aggression)”, but “he managed to commit sexual touch, as well as penetrations on some of his patients, especially for children.”

Beyond the trial, he was convicted in 2020 because he abused his granddaughters and a neighbor outside a hospital. Over a dozen of his patients sought to join the current case against him, but were prevented by French law, because their statements have exceeded the status of 30 years.

The process, expected to last four months, has already attracted national attention, just a few weeks after a terrible rape process, the moon and drugs, shook France. Victim Gisele Pelicot has become a strong symbol In the struggle to change shame around sexual abuse back the perpetrators.

Many hope that this process of abuse of children will fulfill a similar purpose, contributing to bringing a painful consideration with the problem in France and institutions and culture that could have helped such crimes to be uncontrolled so long.

“Why are some of my victims in the press?” Lawyer Francesca Satta, who represents several of the alleged victims, told CNN: “It is due to the fact that they are part of this movement that silence is no longer an option.”

The oldest victims are almost 50 years ago, while the youngest is 17 years old.

This is the extent of the process, a university conference room near the Court was requisitioned to host 400 people, including alleged victims, families, lawyers and media.

This is not the first time that they were scornec was before an instance for accusations related to abuse of children.

In 2005, he was convicted of holding images of children, following a Tip from the FBI when he enrolled on a website for sharing pedophilia. His four -month imprisonment condition was suspended.

The Scouarnec was sentenced in 2020 in Western France for the rape of a minor and holding images of children, receiving a 15 -year punishment, after sexually abused by the daughter of the neighbors through the fence in their yard. He was incarcerated from that process.

The searches of the property and his hospital office have raised their journals and about 70 children’s dolls, with whom investigators believe that “shared their daily lives” before arresting, appointing, dressing and using pleasure to sexual.

Instead, he scoured them “he had no empathy, no emotion, no feeling towards a small human being, which he literally considered a sexual object,” he told CNN Francesca Satta, a lawyer for several of the accusers of the latest abuse process.

Delphine Driguez, a lawyer who represented the survivors of his abuses at his 2020 trial, agreed with this evaluation of Le Scouarnec. “He is an extremely cold man, without any empathy, very deliberate,” she said.

Satta said that the status of Leo Suruarnec as a middle -class surgeon probably helped to evade suspicion so long, adding that in court, the true nature of the accused will be exposed to all.

During the 2020 trial, she followed him how he displayed the courtroom taken from his computer.

“Then discover the real Jouarnec. Because the look changes, “she said.

At least three doctors alerted the authorities about the concerns about Le Scouarnec, according to the judicial documents and one of the doctors interviewed by the CNN.

Following the conviction of Le Scouarnec since 2005, Thierry Bonvalot, a psychiatrist who also works at the Quimperlé Hospital in Brittania with Le Scouarnec, said he was confronted with him.

“I told him it was dangerous and that his place was not in the hospital. I asked him to resign, “he told CNN.

After a long silence, with his head in his hands, Scouarnec replied, “You cannot do me.”

The evidence in the center of the latest case will be Le Jouarnec’s own journals, prosecutors say they present real events in which the children were abused. His lawyer says he details the fantasies he did not act.

So comprehensive are that a journal discovered during the 2020 process – often noting the time and place of rapes, the victim’s identity and even their address – helped investigators identify the dizzying number of his alleged rapes.

The judicial documents submitted by the criminal prosecution that he acknowledged that the journal began in 1990, writing regularly until 2016, one year before retirement, with 40 to over 100 pages of entrances per year.

Entries describe abuse, usually during an alleged medical examination, playing for false medical pretexts so that you are not alarmed by patients, the documents show.

The intimate tone of his writings is especially creepy, addressing the children’s entries by name, “Little Marie, you were again in your room” begins an account, talking directly with them and putting on many recordings – descriptions of sexual acts. on a child – with: “I love you”.

The lawyers of Le Scouarnec told CNN that they do not comment on the press before the trial. However, his lawyers have described the journals in the past as fantasies. According to the judicial documents, the defendant claimed that he does not remember individual events noted in his journals, although he did not deny them.

In several journal entries included in the court documents, Sciuarnec recognizes that he is a pedophile.

For the survivors of the alleged abuse of Le Scoucache, the years have been traumatic.

Although many of the children were under sedation during the alleged abuse, the effect on their lives was too tangible, for the judicial documents. The documents describe the psychological analyzes of the alleged victims who often show persistent problems, especially in their subsequent sexual relations and in their self -confidence, following their hospitalizations under them.

“We have victims in real, authentic suffering. We have people who are anorexic, who are depressed, who cannot have children, who cannot have sex with their partner. All these abnormalities in quotation marks are unexplained by their doctors, who say, “How is this possible?” Lawyer Satta said. Among the ones they represent are two families of men who were abused by Le Scouarnec and died by suicide years later.

Given the lifetime of abusing the fact that they are accused, some of the testimony of the survivors is no longer admissible in the court. The status of limitations of France restricts the criminal prosecution 30 years after the victim reaches adulthood, which means that about 80 people have not been included in the case, said Satta.

As justice takes place, a question revolves around the case: how is this man supposed to have so many young people so long?

CNN has arrived in hospitals where the crimes were assumed to be committed and the French health authorities for comments.