"Successive silences": how was the paedophile surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec able to act for so long?

Could Joël Le Scouarnec have been arrested earlier? This is the question hanging over the trial of the former surgeon from Jonzac which opened this Monday, February 24 in Vannes (Morbihan) before the departmental criminal court and which will be brought by the prosecution and the lawyers of the civil parties. The former doctor is accused of 300 rapes and sexual assaults on 299 patients over 30 years. A figure which questions the attitude of the medical authorities during his years of practice.

"There is no paedophile career that goes completely unnoticed," notes in a press release from Ciivise, the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence against Children.

On November 17, 2005, Joël Le Scouarnec was sentenced to a four-month suspended prison sentence for possession of child pornography. Alerted by the FBI as part of a vast global investigation, the courts then found him guilty of using his bank card three times to access child pornography sites.

Before the judges, Joël Le Scouarnec justified himself by family "distress". The sentence handed down by the Vannes criminal court is recorded in his criminal record. At the time, it was accompanied by an obligation to receive care - it was not respected - but no ban on working alongside minors was issued by the courts. And his career continued.

Less than a year later, on August 1, 2006, the surgeon was appointed to the hospital in Quimperlé (Finistère) and then to Jonzac (Charente-Maritime), two years later.

Were there failures, malfunctions that allowed Joël Le Scouarnec to claim around forty additional victims between 2006 and 2014, when he had already claimed more than 250? Did some people know and do nothing? "Society refuses to see incest, refuses to see sexual violence against children, even more so when it involves pedophilia," says Me Myriam Guedj Benayoun, lawyer for two victims in this trial and a regular in the assize courts for this type of crime.

"We preferred to see the good father, the doctor, the notable," she analyses.

In 2004, when he was implicated by the FBI and arrested in France for "possession of child pornography", Joël Le Scouarnec was stationed in Lorient. He did not inform his management of his legal concerns.

When in 2006 a position became available at the Quimperlé hospital, where he was already doing replacements, this conviction, a few months after being pronounced, was not yet registered in his criminal record, which management checks at the time of his permanent recruitment. The procedure for permanent appointment is then launched in April.

In June of that same year, a psychiatrist at the establishment made a report: Joël Le Scouarnec had, in front of him, made remarks with a "sexual double meaning" about one of his patients, after a complaint from the parents about an abnormally long operation. Finally warned, the director of the establishment and the council of the Departmental Order of Finistère decided not to apply any sanction to the practitioner.

On 1 August 2006, Joël Le Scouarnec was therefore appointed, even though he did not meet the moral standards required for the exercise of his functions. During the investigation, the two authorities explained themselves, considering that Joël Le Scouarnec was a "serious, competent and affable" surgeon and that surgical activity in the establishment had been able to be "stabilized" with his arrival.

Furthermore, they noted that in the judgment of the Vannes criminal court, there was a "lack of repetition of the criminal behavior" and that ultimately a decision was more the responsibility of the DDASS, the Departmental Directorate of Health and Social Affairs - it carries out, among other things, inspection missions in hospitals.

A complaint could have been filed subsequently with the Council of the Order by what was at the time the Regional Health Agency. A complaint that never existed. Here again, the DDASS officials note the absence of repetition by the doctor but note that if the information of the conviction had been known earlier, "the appointment could have been avoided".

"What is really fundamental is to realize that, in this case, the information has been passed on, that is to say that the circumstance that Joël Le Scouarnec was convicted in 2005 for possession and use of child pornography images was known by everyone," notes Me Laure Boutron-Marmion, lawyer for the association Face à l'inceste, a civil party in this trial.

"The question is 'what do we do with this information?'" she adds. "This file tells us about the inability of institutions to process this information."

The association she represents has filed a complaint to identify possible responsibilities. The investigation is still ongoing .

In the other hospitals where Joël Le Scouarnec subsequently worked, the surgeon never hid this conviction. At the Jonzac hospital, the management, although warned, considered that the doctor had not committed any physical aggression. In 2015, his authorization to practice was renewed despite the age limit reached by the doctor.

For the lawyer for Face à l'inceste, this difficulty in processing this information is less a "logistical" problem than a lack of "awareness" of the seriousness of the facts by the authorities.

"The offence of possession and use of child pornography is seen today as a sub-offence of pedocriminality," continues Me Laure Boutron-Marmion. "That is to say that most of the accused who appear for this type of act will say 'it's a mistake' except that a child pornography image is the image of an assault, a rape, sometimes even torture, and it is held for the purpose of sexual pleasure.

"All sexual predators have child pornography images, it's really a weak signal," she insists.

"How is this possible when we knew 100% that he had been sentenced to be allowed to go and see children, minor patients, alone," says Me Myriam Guedj-Benayoun. "Couldn't protective measures be taken for these young patients? For Joël Le Scouarnec, it was jubilant, he could do what he wanted." The lawyer believes that, at the very least, it would have been possible to prohibit him from being around minor patients.

On Monday, at the opening of the trial, the General Medicine Union demonstrated to protest against the constitution of the National Council of the Order of Physicians as a civil party. "It is unacceptable that the Order of Physicians does not express regret or public apologies for this irresponsible passivity, for these years of silence, which have serious consequences for the victims," ​​the union wrote in a press release , assuring that "the Order is responsible."

The National Council of the Order responded by assuring that it wanted to "guarantee the integrity of the medical profession" by constituting itself as a civil party. It also mentioned "several reforms to strengthen vigilance and coordination with the judicial authorities". "I hear the disputes, the value judgments, but the Order of Physicians intends to answer the questions and shed light on the shortcomings", insisted the lawyer of the Order at the start of the hearing on Monday, distancing himself from the Departmental Council.

For Face à l'inceste, this pedocriminal dynamic could have been stopped even earlier, even before 2005 and this conviction. "Before moving to the professional level, the case began with incest, an incest that was not treated as such and as an absolute crime", believes Solène Podevin-Favre, president of the association and member of Ciivise. "Somehow this legitimized the passage to the act on victims in a broader and wider framework."

Joël Le Scouarnec, who grew up in an incestuous environment, was in fact found guilty of raping one of his nieces and sexually assaulting another in 2020. Acts committed in the 1980s and 1990s. In his family circle, his pedocriminal tendencies were, it seems, known.

"Throughout the years, witnesses have observed and are able to alert, whether they are in the private or institutional environment," believes Ciivise. "It is the successive silences of all that have created this series of crimes, and not an extraordinary criminal elevated to the status of a monster."

Even though his ex-wife always denied it , Joël Le Scouarnec wrote in 1996: "She discovered that I am a pedophile." For investigators, there is little doubt that he is referring to his wife. "We are not saying that Joël Le Scouarnec's family let it happen, in all conscience, it is much more complex," notes Me Boutron-Marmion.

Joël Le Scouarnec says that "she" - always a reference to his wife according to investigators - "confiscated" his dolls, that she came across his writings. The surgeon's sister confronted her brother. "This family moved within itself, there were discussions, confrontations, it stopped there", notes Solène Podevin Favre.

According to Face à l'inceste, in 2020, one in 10 French people admitted to having been a victim of incest. In 9 out of 10 cases, the family takes the side of the aggressor and rejects the victim in favor of family cohesion. "This family was no exception to everything that happens in all families in France, except that today we have a trial where there are 300 victims," ​​concludes the president of the association.