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• Thu May 29 2025

Paedophile surgeon's sentence leaves victims appalled

15 hours ago Share Save Laura Gozzi BBC News Share Save

EPA A banner made up of hundreds of sheets of paper to represent Le Scouarnec's victims was unfurled near the courthouse in Vannes on Wendesday

The victims of prolific French paedophile Joel Le Scouarnec have expressed their dismay that the former surgeon's 20-year prison sentence does not include preventive detention - meaning he could be released from jail in the early 2030s. The 74-year-old was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing hundreds of people, most of them underage patients of his, over decades. Over the course of the trial he had confessed to committing 111 rapes and 188 sexual assaults, and was sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in jail. Prosecutors - who dubbed Le Scouarnec "a devil in a white coat" - had asked the court to take the extremely rare provision to hold him in a centre for treatment and supervision even after release, called preventive detention.

The judge rejected this demand, arguing Le Scouarnec's age and his "desire to make amends" had been taken into account. Le Scouarnec will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence before being eligible for parole. But because he has already served seven years due to a previous conviction for the rape and sexual assault of four children, he may be eligible for parole by 2032. His lawyer, Maxime Tessier, pointed out that saying Le Scouarnec could be released then was "inaccurate", as parole is not tantamout a release. Now, his victims - many of whom assiduously attended the three-month-long trial in Vannes, northern France - are lamenting the sentence. "For a robbery you risk 30 years. But the punishment for hundreds of child rapes is lighter?" one victim told Le Monde. The president of a child advocacy group, Sol?ne Podevin Favre, said that she might have expected the verdict "to be less lenient" and to include a post-sentence preventive detention. "It's the maximum sentence, certainly," she said. "But it's the least we could have hoped for. Yet in six years, he could potentially be released. It's staggering." Marie Grimaud, one of the lawyers representing the victims, told reporters that while she "intellectually" understood the verdict, "symbolically" she could not.

Reuters Le Scouarnec, a former surgeon, admitted to all the charges against him