Joel Le Scouarnec: French surgeon who sexually abused hundreds of children is jailed
A former surgeon who sexually abused hundreds of children in France has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children in one of France‘s largest-ever child sex abuse cases.
Most of the victims were abused while under anaesthesia or waking up from operations, with an almost equal number of boys and girls. Two victims took their own lives years before the trial.
He was accused of 300 separate offences – 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults – in more than a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014.
Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence for a 2020 conviction for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces.
During the trial in Morbihan, in western France, prosecutors described Le Scouarnec as “a devil in a white coat” and requested the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
“I’m aware that the harm I’ve caused is beyond repair,” Le Scouarnec said at the opening of the trial in February.
“I owe it to all these people and their loved ones to admit my actions and their consequences, which they’ve endured and will keep having to endure all their lives.”
The court ordered Le Scouarnec should serve at least two-thirds of the sentence before he can be eligible for release.
Presiding Judge Aude Buresi said Le Scouarnec had preyed on victims when they were at their most vulnerable.
“Your acts were a blind spot in the medical world, to the extent that your colleagues, the medical authorities, were incapable of stopping your actions,” the judge told Le Scouarnec.
Read more:
A monster who lived among us – and got away with it
How did surgeon carry out abuse unchecked for decades?
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French child abuse victim speaks out
Le Scouarnec had confessed to all the sexual abuse, as well as to other assaults that are now beyond the statute of limitations.
He kept detailed records of the abuse he inflicted in notebooks and diaries and some only became aware they had been abused when contacted by investigators after their names appeared in his journals.
Others only realised they had been admitted to hospital at the time by checking their medical journals.
Le Scouarnec in a courtroom sketch. Pic: Reuters
“I didn’t see them as people,” Le Scouarnec told the court during the trial.
“They were the destination of my fantasies. As the trial went on, I began to see them as individuals, with emotions, anger, suffering and distress.”
Le Scouarnec was never investigated during his career, despite being sentenced in 2005 for owning child sexual abuse images.
He was only apprehended after he retired in 2017 when a girl told her mother that Le Scouarnec had sexually abused her while she was playing in the garden of her home.
When the police searched Le Scouarnec’s house they found 300,000 indecent photos and videos of children, 70 child-sized dolls and hundreds of notebooks and diaries detailing his acts of abuse.
Dozens of victims and rights campaigners gathered outside the courthouse in Brittany ahead of the verdict with a banner made of hundreds of pieces of white paper with black silhouettes – one for each victim. Some papers featured a first name and age, while others referred to the victim as “Anonymous”.
The local prosecutor has opened a separate investigation to determine if there was any criminal liability by agencies or individuals who could have prevented the abuse.
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A group of victims said in a statement before the verdict: “This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large.”
Seven people have been killed and dozens are injured after two bridges collapsed in Russia overnight.
A train derailed after a bridge collapsed on to it in the Bryansk region, killing the driver and six others.
Some 69 people were injured in the crash, with the train travelling from Moscow to Klimov at the time.
Earlier, local authorities blamed “illegal interference” for the incident.
Later, a bridge collapsed in Russia’s Kursk region while a freight train was passing over it.
Local officials said one of the train’s drivers was injured in the crash.
The scene of the train crash in Kursk region. Pic: RIA/Telegram
Russia’s Baza Telegram channel, which often publishes information from sources in the security services and law
enforcement, reported, without providing evidence, that the bridge in Bryansk was blown up, according to initial information.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Since the start of the war that Russia launched more than three years ago, there have been continued cross-border shelling, drone strikes, and covert raids by Ukrainian forces into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine.
Pic: Moscow Transport Prosecutor’s Office
Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said: “Everything is being done to provide all necessary assistance to the victims.”
Emergency workers are at the scene of the train derailment, attempting to pull survivors from the wreckage.
Russia’s federal road transportation agency said the destroyed bridge passed above the railway tracks where the train was travelling.
Images from the scene show passenger cars ripped apart and lying amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge.
Other footage on social media appeared to be taken from inside vehicles which narrowly avoided driving onto the bridge before it collapsed.
World
Israel confirms Hamas chief Mohammad Sinwar was killed – as group makes counter-offer on ceasefire
Israel has confirmed its forces have killed Hamas’s Gaza chief, Mohammad Sinwar, as US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff called the group’s counter-offer on a ceasefire “totally unacceptable”.
Mohammad Sinwar became the leader of the militant group in the Gaza Strip after his older brother Yahya Sinwar was killed last October.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it had killed Sinwar on 13 May, and was the target of a strike on a hospital in southern Gaza.
Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament on Wednesday that he had been “eliminated”.
A handout image of Mohammed Sinwar from December 2023. Pic: Israeli Army / Reuters
Hamas seeks changes in US ceasefire proposal
It comes as Hamas said it was seeking amendments to a US-proposed ceasefire deal, offering 10 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of 18 in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
On Thursday, the White House said Israel agreed to a 60-day ceasefire proposal, which would see the release of nine living hostages and half of the known hostages who have died over the course of a week.
Israel and Hamas would then continue talks to bring the remaining hostages home, but Israel would retain the right to resume military action in Gaza if talks were to break down.
In a statement about the proposal on Saturday, Hamas said its response “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip”.
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Israeli ambassador claims ‘no starvation in Gaza’
Hamas offer ‘totally unacceptable’ – Witkoff
Donald Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Mr Witkoff, said on social media that Hamas’s response is “totally unacceptable and only takes us backwards”.
“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” he added.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters that the group has not rejected the proposal but added Mr Witkoff’s response was “unfair” and showed “complete bias” towards Israel.
Israel has not yet responded to Hamas’ counter-offer, but has previously rejected the conditions and demanded the complete disarmament and dismantling of the group.
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Meanwhile, Gaza aid groups have said dozens of World Food Programme (WFP) trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people.
The WFP added: “After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by.”
Read more:
Last hospital in northern Gaza out of service
How the new Gaza aid system collapsed into chaos
UK will ‘seek to do more if it can’ for Gaza children – Lammy
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Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation”.
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries via the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Instead, it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies.
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