French surgeon accused of abusing 299 patients, mostly children

A 74-year-old surgeon accused of abusing 299 people, most of them children, while they were anaesthetized or recovering from operations has told a French court he did “hideous things” and is prepared to take responsibility for them, The Guardian writes.

In 2017, neighbors in Jonzac, north of Bordeaux, reported Le Scouarnec to police. In 2020, he was convicted for the rape or sexual assault of four children, including a young hospital patient. He was sentenced to 15 years and is currently in prison. When detectives searched his home they found hard disks containing more than 300,000 photos and videos featuring child sexual abuse, as well as notebooks recording details of the alleged abuse of patients. Officers also discovered a collection of dolls, some lifesize, under the floorboards.

Almost all the children were unaware of the alleged abuse until police knocked at their doors having discovered their names in the handwritten “black books” found at Le Scouarnec’s home.

The trial, which is expected to last four months, will also focus on how Le Scouarnec was allowed to continue operating on children despite having been convicted and given a four-month suspended sentence for possessing child sexual abuse images in 2005. One of Le Scouarnec’s lawyers, Maxime Tessier, told the court his client admitted to the “vast majority” of the charges. Le Scouarnec’s former wife and his three children are expected to give evidence on Tuesday.