He described himself in a diary as an “exhibitionist, voyeur, sadist, masochist, scatologist, fetishist, pedophile.” Before adding: “And I am very happy about it.” Joël Le Scouarnec is perhaps one of the worst pedophiles to have operated on French territory. Detained in the Saintes remand center (Charente-Maritime), this 72-year-old former surgeon is under investigation for rape and sexual assault on 312 potential victims identified in light of his secret diaries in which he recounted sexual abuse over a period of 30 years.
The Lorient public prosecutor’s office, which investigated this extraordinary case, has just requested that Joël Le Scouarnec be referred to a criminal court, we learned on Monday from concordant sources, confirming information from Franceinfo“I confirm that the Lorient public prosecutor’s office issued its final indictment on July 5, 2024,” the prosecution stressed, specifying that the investigating judge’s order was expected “for the month of September.”
Chilling writings found at his home
It will be up to the investigating judge “to decide whether or not to refer Joël Le Scouarnec to this court,” said Maître Thibaut Kurzawa, the former surgeon’s lawyer, adding that his client wanted “to be judged for what he did and not for what he did not do.” It was the complaint in 2017 by a neighbor, a six-year-old girl, in Jonzac (Charente-Maritime), which brought to light this gigantic case of pedophilia guided by the surgeon’s chilling writings found at his home in 2017.
In December 2020 in Saintes, during a closed-door trial, the Charente-Maritime Assize Court sentenced Joël Le Scouarnec to fifteen years of criminal imprisonment for sexual assault on one of his nieces and a young patient in the 1990s, as well as rape of another niece, at the same time, and of her six-year-old neighbor. The septuagenarian had appealed this sentence.