French pedophile surgeon was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison after he was accused of hundreds of rapes and sexual assaults. Photo by Teresa Suarez/EPA-EFE
A French pedophile surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison.
During a 90-day trial Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, was charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults from 1989 to 2014 that allegedly occurred at a dozen hospitals.
“Twenty years is little compared to the number of victims in this trial,” said victim attorney Francesa Satta in a statement. “It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences.”
Le Scouarnec,is serving 15 years in prison for raping and sexually assaulting two of his nieces and two other children.
“You were the devil and sometimes the devil is dressed in a white coat,” state prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger said.
Le Scouarnec addressed the court and said he was not requesting leniency as his attorney Maxime Tessier told the court he is “utterly guilty.”
“I was a surgeon who benefited from my status to attack children, I don’t deny that,” Le Scouarnec said.
Many of the children were sexually assaulted while under of just waking up from anesthesia.
The French medical and justice system failed to stop Le Scouarnec’s crimes despite a four-year suspended sentence in 2005 for owning child abuse imagery. He retired in 2017.
His sentence did not ban him from being around minors.
A group of victims and their relatives urged the French government to create a committee to deal with the issues raised by Le Scouarnec’s case in an effort to stop what he did from happening again.
One of his child victims, now 36 year-old Manon Lemoine who was raped at age 11 by Le Scouarnec, said “They’re trying to make him out to be a monster, but this monster is the society that created him and allowed him to continue.”
