‘The devil in a white coat’: France’s most prolific sexual predator sentenced

Joel Le Scouarnec practised medicine in France for decades as an outwardly respected surgeon while preying on victims to sexually abuse and rape them, often while under anaesthesia or waking up after operations.

A court in western France on Wednesday convicted Le Scouarnec, 74, who during the trial confessed to sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients between 1989 and 2014 and is already in jail after a previous sexual abuse conviction.

Le Scouarnec, one of the most prolific convicted sex predators in France’s history, received the maximum 20-year sentence for aggravated rape demanded by prosecutors.

The former surgeon, who said himself he deserves no “leniency,” will be ineligible for parole until he has served two-thirds of his sentence.

Crimes concealed behind a facade of professionalism

Throughout the trial, Le Scouarnec admitted to the crimes but repeated apologies in a monotone voice that led some to doubt his sincerity. And questions remain over how he was allowed to continue working despite a conviction for possessing images of child sexual abuse.

His 42-year-old son told the court that his father’s “perversion exploded like an atomic bomb” within the family, shattering the carefully maintained facade of a devoted surgeon.

Authorities found some 300 000 child sexual abuse images, along with diaries in which the surgeon meticulously recorded the sexual abuse of children and animals.

Le Scouarnec, who wrote in his notes that he was “very happy” to be a “paedophile”, admitted the abuse of his patients — 256 of them under 15 — but claims he remembers little of what he did.

‘Devil in a white coat’

“You were the devil and he sometimes is dressed in a white coat,” prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger told Le Scouarnec, warning an additional trial could be required to cover the cases of further victims whose abuse is not part of the current case.

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The former surgeon is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.

Victims and child rights advocates say the case highlights systemic failures that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes.

‘Dangerous nature’

In 2005, he received a four-month suspended prison sentence after investigators linked his credit card to the online purchase of child sexual abuse material.

But Le Scouarnec was neither required to undergo treatment nor barred from practising medicine.

And even after a colleague at Quimperle hospital alerted local and regional medical authorities in 2006 to his conviction and “dangerous nature”, Le Scouarnec continued practising in hospitals across western France.

In one instance, he told the then-director of the Jonzac hospital in western France about his 2005 conviction but she hired him nonetheless in 2008.

Nearly a decade would pass before he once again came under suspicion.

‘Good surgeon, pervert’

Le Scouarnec said during the trial he had two distinct personalities: both “a good surgeon”, and a “pervert” who had no qualms about what he did to his patients.

The divide between those two sides began to unravel in 2017, when his neighbour in Jonzac filed a complaint for indecent exposure in front of her six-year-old daughter — who later accused Le Scouarnec of digital rape.

After his arrest, Le Scouarnec told authorities he first “touched” a child — his niece — between 1985 and 1986.

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Investigators found in 2000 one of his nieces told her mother that she had been raped by her uncle, who, when confronted, admitted the abuse but no complaint was filed.

During the trial, he also admitted sexually abusing one of his granddaughters.

Le Scouarnec said that his wife has known about the abuse since 1996, an allegation she denies.

“There’s nothing to make me think this. Nothing, nothing, nothing… I never had any doubts,” Marie-France, who divorced Le Scouarnec in 2023, told the court.

Incomplete justice

While Le Scouarnec insisted his expressions of regret towards the victims were genuine, many said they did not believe him and some expressed anger with the court’s decision.

The court rejected a rare request to place him in a treatment facility after his release, citing his age and “desire to make amends.”

One of the victims, Amelie Leveque, 43, expressed anger that the court stopped short of imposing that measure on Le Scouarnec.

“I feel humiliated by this verdict. There are 300 victims. Why not go all the way?,” she said. “How many victims does it take, 1 000?”

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