He had escaped justice for 30 years.
The ex-surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, accused of rape and sexual assault on four minors at the material time, was sentenced this Thursday evening to 15 years of criminal imprisonment, for rape of a 15-year-old minor , sexual assault on 15-year-old minors, and repeated possession of child pornography images.
The Advocate General had requested a fifteen-year sentence with a socio-judicial follow-up of ten years (with a five-year sentence in the event of non-compliance with the follow-up), as well as a ban on coming into contact with minors and security detention.
Registration with Fijais, the automated judicial file for perpetrators of sexual and violent offenses, was also required.
The man, who is celebrating his 70th birthday this very day, faced the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
"He is waiting for this sentence, he knows that he will be declared guilty […] but he is awaiting a fair verdict", then declared his lawyer, Thibaut Kurzawa.
Joël Le Scouarnec appeared since Monday behind closed doors before the Assize Court in Saintes, before which he admitted, against all odds, facts of rape, but in a trickle, oscillating, according to civil party lawyers, between " amnesia ”and“ strategic confessions ”for this first part of an exceptional pedophilia case over 30 years.
More than 300 potential victims
The once respected doctor, father of three sons, has in fact also been indicted since October in Lorient (Morbihan), in a second procedure, for rape and sexual assault on 312 potential victims identified in the light of his chilling writings discovered in 2017 Tables and "notebooks" - a private diary - in which he recorded accounts of assault, mainly in his professional activity.
In Saintes, the former digestive surgeon is tried for sexual assault on his niece Aurélie * in the 1990s in Loches (Indre-et-Loire) and on a patient, Amélie * and rape (digital penetrations), in the same period, on Helena *, another niece, and on Lucie *, her little neighbor in Jonzac (Charente-Maritime).
It is this girl who, by denouncing this neighbor, had allowed the arrest of Le Scouarnec in May 2017.
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Since then, he has recognized sexual assault, but has denied in block the more serious facts of rape, in this section which plunges into the “intra-family” dimension of his pedophile itinerary, between family secrets and an “omerta” denounced in unison by the civil parties.
From the 1990s, his ex-wife, who disputes it today, had questioned him about his inclinations, then his sister had received the confidences of these girls.
He had never been denounced.
"Unsustainable" pieces
Confronted with his victims and "unbearable" pieces mixing photos and writings, the accused ended up releasing a partial confession of rape.
On Tuesday, he thus admitted facts on three former victims in the 1980s, confessions however without consequences: their cases had been rejected at the stage of the investigation because prescribed.
Then, confronted Wednesday with the eldest of the two nieces, he admitted to having raped her and her sister.
Now aged 30 and 35, Helena * and Aurélie * had been photographed by their uncle assaulting them.
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"Everything they say is true," admitted the accused, according to statements reported by lawyers in the hall of the lost footsteps of the courthouse, where snatches of hearing are rumored.
The "relief" of the nieces after these confessions was however short-lived.
At this stage of the procedure, according to several lawyers, the court cannot accept these confessions concerning the elder since it was not seized of these facts in the act of dismissal of the examining magistrate.
"It's a stab in the back" of Aurélie *, reacted, ulcerated, Me Delphine Driguez, the lawyer of the two nieces.
His disappointment was added to that of the mother and lawyer of the little neighbor of Jonzac, who did not manage to draw a confession on the digital rape of the girl, 10 years old today.
"His confessions are strategic," said Céline Astolfe, lawyer for the Foundation for Children.
"He acquiesced to everything that is mentioned in his writings (the abuses, editor's note), without narrating them himself and disputes the facts that he did not write down", she says, in reference to the surgeon's "notebooks", which do not mention this act of rape.
He "does not remember", assured his lawyer Me Thibaut Kurzawa.
