French court sentences former surgeon to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing 300 children
A French court has sentenced former surgeon Joel Le Squarnec to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing nearly 300 children. This trial became the largest in the history of child abuse cases in France, informs The Guardian.
The 20-year term is the maximum sentence for Le Squarnec, because sentences are not compounded in France, unlike in the United States, where he could be sentenced to 2,000 years. The trial lasted three months in the city of Vann. According to the results of the hearings, Le Squarneck was found guilty of 111 cases of rape and 189 cases of sexual harassment.
He committed the crimes between 1989 and 2014 while working as a pediatric surgeon in numerous hospitals. Most of the victims were under anesthesia or had just woken up after operations. The average age of the victims was 11 years. The accused admitted his guilt. During his closing speech in court, he said he would “not ask for leniency.”
“I was a surgeon who used my status to attack children – and I don’t deny it”, – noted Le Squarneck.
The accused’s lawyer, Maxime Tessier, also admitted his client’s guilt, stressing that the French medical system and politicians should draw conclusions from this tragic case.
This is not the first time that Le Squarneck has been convicted. In 2005, he was found guilty of possession of child pornography, but was allowed to continue working with minor patients. In 2020, he went on trial again for raping and sexually abusing four children, including two nieces and a neighbor girl.
Prosecutors continued the investigation and established that the real number of victims exceeds 299 people. During the arrest, hundreds of pages of his diaries and two spreadsheets on hard drives were discovered. In the records, Le Squarnec detailed the abuse of the children, and the tables contained their names, ages, addresses and characteristics of the abuse.
