“It's not my fault, I don't remember”, “I'm not saying that I didn't do it, but I don't know anymore”… On the second day of his trial for rape and assault sexual on four victims, all minors at the time of the facts, Joël Le Scouarnec remained on the same line of conduct on Tuesday as the day before: amnesia.
On the sidelines of the hearing which has been held behind closed doors since Monday at the Charente-Maritime assizes, several lawyers deplored this closed attitude of the accused.
On March 13, when his trial opened, closed and canceled after a day due to general confinement, "he announced that he would say everything", regrets Me Delphine Driguez.
The lawyer for two victims, her nieces, believes that “this hiatus of several months was extremely damaging.
At the time, we felt a touch of emotion in front of those close to him… ”, in particular his sons and sister.
"We do not detect anything"
"Today, even in front of them, its shell is very solid, we do not detect anything", summarizes Me Laure Boutron-Marmion, lawyer for the association Face à incest.
"Since March, he has had time to think and build his defense which consists of saying as little as possible, except when it suits him", continues Me Driguez.
Amnesia seems to be communicative.
Called to the bar in the morning, his ex-wife Marie-France Lhermitte would have maintained, despite the testimonies of his sister, his sister-in-law, his nieces and Joël Le Scouarnec himself never having known anything of her pedophile inclinations… Faced with her contradictions, she would also have played the card of failing memory - "maybe because of my medication", she argued, provoking the anger and tears of her two nieces .
For the rest, she pleaded the lack of curiosity, explaining that she never asked questions, even after her husband's conviction in 2005 for possession of child pornography images.
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Victims seeking confessions
A visibly embarrassing episode for his last employer, the Jonzac hospital, where Joël Le Scouarnec arrived in 2007. Before that, the digestive surgeon had worked in various structures in the west of France, according to the official count of the justice 312 victims among his patients.
He was indicted in October in this second section, the investigation of which is still ongoing.
In Jonzac, where there was then a lack of arms, his application had been greeted with enthusiasm, without any verification of his record or his file with the Order of Physicians.
In 2009, at the time of his tenure, Joël Le Scouarnec had nevertheless informed the director of his conviction.
What she first denied on Tuesday morning, in total contradiction with her statements to investigators.
Cornered, she ended up admitting to having known and having committed negligence.
A turnaround which was recorded in writing at the request of the president of the Assize Court and could fuel another investigation, also in progress, for "voluntary abstention from preventing a crime or an offense".
“Silence is the key word in this dossier and leads witnesses who nevertheless had memories to no longer have any!
», Pretends to be astonished Me Céline Astolfe, lawyer of the Foundation for the Childhood, one of the associations constituted civil party.
He confesses to sexual assault
In the afternoon, Joël Le Scouarnec admitted half-heartedly to the attacks on his nieces, facts that would have “probably happened” according to him, since described in his “black notebooks” where he kept the accounts of his deviations .
He also confessed to a sexual exhibition dating from 2017 on a little neighbor ... while denying the rape.
It was the denunciation of this 6-year-old girl at the time that had ended the accused's prolific career as a pedophile.
Furious, very moved at the mention of the passages in the "notebooks" on her daughter, her mother Laura Temperault strongly challenged the accused before leaving the room during the afternoon.
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The only real novelty, Joël Le Scouarnec, now 70 years old, also recognized for the first time, and without ambiguity, sexual assaults on three of his victims, who attend the trial, but for which the facts are prescribed ... so no condemnable.
PODCAST. Is the surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec the worst French pedophile in history?
“From the start, Mr. Le Scouarnec intends to address his victims and recognize things he has done.
He says it with his words:
I soiled your childhood, I wasted your adolescence and I am solely responsible,
"said his lawyer, Me Thibault Kurzawa to AFP.
"He does not dispute having assaulted his nieces, having had sexually deviant behavior towards his neighbor," he continues, "however he disputes another part of the facts", those of rape.
"He has no recollection of acts of sexual penetration," says his defender.
Joël Le Scouarnec, whose trial is due to end on Thursday evening, faces up to twenty years in prison.
